icarus falling I: these wings of wax
by materialize
Summary: Pre-series fic. The past cannot be undone, and the Uchiha clan struggles to redefine themselves as they negotiate a world of war and uneasy peace. After Uzumaki Kushina arrives in Konoha, she and Uchiha Mikoto become the best of friends, and Mikoto begins to shape her own legacy with her friends at her side. (Kushina&Mikoto friendship; hints of future Kushina/Minato, Mikoto/Fugaku)
1. Chapter 1

notes: after discovering that this series _finally _ended, i made the bad decision to reread the manga and nearly killed myself reading 700 chapters in one week because i have zero self control. so, writing fanfiction again i guess. it's been several years...

this is the first of a short series of drabbles about my personal headcanons, set from mikoto (sasuke's mother)'s pov. i am a little obsessed with the fact that kushina and mikoto were good friends. let me know what you think!

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><p>Mikoto's first day at the Academy is not noteworthy because two of her fellow students declare their desire to be Hokage, but because one of them is a little red headed girl that nobody actually knows. Nobody but Mikoto seems to notice the way Kushina's face freezes after she makes her declaration, as if she herself hadn't expected to say that.<p>

It is also noteworthy because Kushina takes down two of the top students of their class when they make fun of her for it. Mikoto covers her mouth before she can laugh out loud, but Kushina still notices. Her mouth falls open and she stops pummeling poor Tohru with her fist, and flushes wildly. She drops him to the ground.

The rest of the class (and Honda-sensei) seem to be frozen in shock. Kushina scowls and looks down at the floor and away from Mikoto's eyes, becoming suddenly shy. "I'm not a tomato," she mutters.

Honda-sensei seems to suddenly come back to himself. He scoops Toru and Wayu into his arms, snaps at them to not to move, and then disappears with the two boys.

The class is left staring awkwardly down at Kushina, whose reddening face is actually starting to resemble a tomato.

Fugaku, who has never had much sense, says cheerfully from the other side of the room, "More like a Red Hot-Blooded Habanero!"

For one thunderous second, Mikoto is almost entirely certain Fugaku is going to die. Traitorously, she thinks that her clan might be better off for it - of this generation of Uchihas, Fugaku is the most irritating, spoiled, and useless.

Still, he's the clan heir. And there's a squirming, blooming feeling in her heart when Mikoto watches Kushina shake with fury that Mikoto doesn't understand, but it makes her interrupt Fugaku's imminent beating by interjecting, "There's never been a female Hokage."

The attention of the entire class shifts to Mikoto, but she keeps her eyes on Kushina. From the troubled crease of her brow, Mikoto guesses that Kushina isn't sure whether or not to be angry or not, but her clenched fists say that she's ready to be.

Mikoto smiles at Kushina. "You would be the first." Kushina looks taken aback, and then smiles tentatively back.

Minato gives her a slightly betrayed look, but Yama at his side roars with laughter and slaps him on the back. Hizashi chuckles to her left, even though he doesn't look her in the eye.

Kushina beams at her and says, "Fuck yeah I will! And I'll be better than that-" she jabs her finger violently at Minato, who looks startled "-weak-looking little pretty boy over there!" just as Honda-sensei pops back into the room.

Minato repeats in confusion, "Pretty boy?" as Honda-sensei turns purple with rage.

_"Uzumaki!"_


	2. Chapter 2

i plotted out the rest of the story because i was worried about losing track of the plot. there will probably be around 25 chapters. btw i feel like i should probably warn everyone: this story is not going to end happily. you may have already suspected this because of the canon. still, _seriously _this is going to end badly.

also, it seems important to note here that since i've only read the manga, my interpretation of canon might be different from others. i read the wiki sometimes to check info, but mostly my canon is just what was in the manga.

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><p>Kushina has declared Minato to be her rival. Minato has had no say in this matter.<p>

This is the funniest (and funnest) thing that has ever happened in Mikoto's life. Before Kushina came into their lives, Minato had been one of Mikoto's closest friends and even she'd occasionally grown annoyed with his impeccably kind, polite, and collected personality. They were shinobi children, but they were still children for heavens' sake, couldn't he act a little more like it?

"Stop _laughing_," Minato whines as Mikoto tries to help him pluck out the worst of the twigs in his hair. Kushina had rigged the ground to open up when Minato walked his usual path down to Ichiraku and filled the hole with various forest debris they had collected earlier that day. There is a lot of mud involved as well.

Mikoto is not laughing: Kushina is cackling madly and doing a victory dance around them, but Mikoto is her mother's daughter and she can beat her grandfather at poker nine times out of ten, even if he tries to use the Sharingan. She has the straightest straight face of all time.

"I think this new look suits you," Mikoto responds gravely instead.

Minato scowls at her, an unexpectedly childish expression that cracks her facade and makes her laugh out loud. After a moment, Minato smiles back wryly.

"What are you smiling about, pretty boy!" Kushina taunts, waving her finger dangerously close to his dripping nose. "I got you, and I got you good! Top of the class doesn't mean anything if you can't see a trap right under your nose! Come on, step it up! If I'm going to be Hokage, I can't have such a mediocre rival!"

It's endearing but also deeply amusing to see his half-resigned, half-beleaguered, entirely bemused expression as he stares at Kushina. She used to challenge Minato to a battle to the death until the Sandaime heard it and wished them both luck, but told them he would prefer that there was no death involved. Before, Minato just had to get clever about running away. Mikoto _still_ can't figure out how he disappeared that one time Kushina (with Mikoto's help) had backed him into a corner with no way out.

Minato is top of the class, and Kushina is... not, so Kushina had turned to playing tricks on him to get her own. He always seems honestly surprised when he gets caught in one of Kushina's traps.

Now, Minato scratches his head sheepishly and says, "I guess I should. That was very well camouflaged - I didn't notice any signs of a trap at all."

"Ha ha!" Kushina crows over him, not listening, "I bet you didn't see the trap at all, sucker!" Then she does a double-take. "Wait, what? What did you say?"

Minato looks embarrassed and sheepish. "It was really well done."

"...Thank you," Kushina says resentfully.

Mikoto can't help it. She bursts out laughing at the outraged confusion warring with prideful glee on Kushina's face.

And poor Minato, who probably thinks he's being a gentleman, digs his own grave by saying, "I promise to take your challenges seriously from now on."

"Oh no," Mikoto manages to gasp out as a warning between bouts of almost hysterical laughter.

"From-" Kushina's face goes bright red with anger. "_You_-"

And Mikoto absolutely _loses it_ when Kushina screams with fury and punches Minato so hard that he goes flying. She can't breathe, she's going to die of laughter and her family will never get over the shame of it.

Out of nowhere, Honda-sensei comes running towards them, his face pinched the way it always gets when Kushina does something destructive.

"Uzumaki!"

"He started it!"


	3. Chapter 3

longest chapter so far! i'm not great about explaining things, especially when some things are taken for granted by my pov character, but i find it sort of unlikely that uzushiogakure would have sent _just _kushina on her lonesome to konoha. i think that at the very least, they'd send a team to escort her and maybe accompany her as a sort of diplomatic entourage. so the uzushio shinobi that you meet in this chapter are an oc genin team and their sensei.

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><p>"Alright!" Tae-sensei announces, and Mikoto and Kushina freeze in the action of trying to hit the Uzushio genin with kunai before lowering it to their sides, pointy end down but aimed deliberately away from their feet. Basic safety measures that Honda-sensei taught them and Tae-sensei was very firm about reinforcing.<p>

The three-person genin team from Uzushio immediately take their places in front of their teacher, hands clasped casually but respectfully behind their backs. Tae-sensei stands tall and intimidating before them, but her face practically glows with pride. "You all have done very well today. Especially you, Amito-kun, you really took my advice for how to dodge projectile weapons to heart and made good use of it today."

Amito flushes with pride and looks down and mutters his thanks. On either side of him, his teammates Saya and Minoru snicker and elbow him in the sides as he turns an unattractive red color even more vibrant than Kushina at her most furious.

Tae-sensei chuckles, shaking her head, and tells them to clean up the training area. It's courtesy, she reminds them, to clean up the practice area after you're done, especially since they are guests in Konoha. It's their responsibility to respect their fellow ninja and their hosts by cleaning up after themselves. "Plus," she adds with a wink, making Amito flush again, "it makes our village look really good. Let's fool Konohagakure into thinking all Uzushio genin are as wonderful and respectful as you three!"

"Yeah!" Saya cheers loudly, and drags a flushing Amito and slightly reluctant looking Minoru off to help her clean.

Tae-sensei chuckles then goes over to kneel in front of Mikoto and Kushina, who are standing slightly off to the side. "You both have gotten much better at aiming your kunai since the last time we did this activity," she says, "I'm very impressed."

She smiles and ruffles their hair. Kushina ducks her chin, clearly pleased but too proud to admit it. Mikoto smiles up at Tae-sensei - the older woman reminds her a little of Kagami-ojiisama. They are both steady and kind in the same sort of way.

"One of my cousins is a chuunin and she wants to be a teacher at the academy. She likes to help me practice and she gives good tips." Mikoto tells her. She grins slyly over at Kushina, who recognizes the mischievous gleam in her eyes too late. "Sometimes Kushina 'just happens' to be around. She's gotten quite intense about training since Minato made genin early _oof_"

Bright red, Kushina drops her kunai on the ground and tackles Mikoto around the middle. Mikoto makes sure to hang onto her kunai, even when her back thumps solidly on the ground, making her grunt. She throws it to the side after that though, making sure to keep it well out of the way.

"Oh ho!" Tae-sensei says.

"You liar!" Kushina huffs, curling her fingers into Mikoto's collarbone and making her giggle because it tickles, "You said you believed me when I said that I got lost looking for Ichiraku!"

"Kushina, I think Ichiraku is the only place you can find in Konoha without getting lost," Mikoto says, amused. "I would have believed you if you'd said you'd gotten lost looking for the library-" she rolls to avoid a wild punch to the nose. Becoming friends with Kushina has been incredibly good for motivating Mikoto to get better at taijustsu.

"Mikoto!" Kushina wails, "Stop making me look uncool in front of Tae-sensei!"

"Now, now," Tae-sensei says peaceably, but she doesn't make a move to stop them when Mikoto flips Kushina off of her and Kushina blocks her punch. She just continues to smile and watch as their fight descends into rolling around on the ground and laughingly trying to rub more dirt into each other's hair than the other.

Some dirt gets into Mikoto's mouth and she sputters and stumbles back, trying to spit it out.

"I win!" Kushina declares.

"You do not!" Mikoto denies, and prepares to jump again, but Tae-sensei finally steps in.

"You might want to get cleaned up," the jounin points out, one red eyebrow raised.

Mikoto looks down at her clothes, which have gone from black to ashy red-brown from the dirt, and then up at Kushina just as a clump of dirt crumbles off the side of her head and lands with a _plop_ on her shoulder. She thinks about how angry her mother will be that she's ruined her clothes again, and makes a tactical decision.

"Come on, Kushina, if I bring a friend home with me, my mom won't yell at me as much for getting so dirty."

Mikoto marches off, and nearly makes it all the way off the practice field before she realizes Kushina isn't following. She turns around to see Kushina staring after her, still standing exactly where Mikoto had left her, her mouth hanging open.

Suddenly unsure, Mikoto shuffles her feet and amends, "I mean, if you want to. You don't have to. I just thought that since the Uchiha complex is closer than the diplomatic residences... I guess maybe the family bath won't be as nice as the onsen there."

Kushina blinks. "No, I just..." She looks at Tae-sensei.

Mikoto looks at Tae-sensei too, confused as to what the older woman has to do with anything. Tae-sensei just smiles at Kushina, and then turns to Mikoto and nods.

Mikoto nods back slowly, though she really wishes someone would use words to explain just what is happening here.

"I am honored by the invitation of hospitality and I humbly accept," Kushina says, suddenly creepily formal. Tae-sensei's hand flies up to cover her mouth, as if hiding a smile, and a bush to Mikoto's left lets out an abortive bark of laughter and then shakes as if one or two other people are forcibly keeping another quiet.

Weirded out, Mikoto blurts out, "Never mind, I take it back."

Kushina gapes, abruptly dropping the unexpected formality. "You can't take it back!"

Inexpressibly relieved, Mikoto argues, "I can too!"

"Can not!"

"Can too!"

"Can not!"

"Fine, I won't take it back if you can beat me in a race there!" Mikoto decides, and takes off. She's not worried about Kushina catching up. Kushina can run faster and longer than anyone except for Minato.

"That's not fair!" Kushina shouts after her, already sounding closer. "And I don't know where we're going!"

Mikoto shouts back, "It's a good thing you're following me then!" The wind steals her laughter from her lungs, but she can hear Tae-sensei's laughter following them down the road.

Mikoto wins because she cheated and got a head start, but she still invites Kushina in. Kushina sniffs and promises to beat Mikoto next time, which Mikoto is sure she will. She just smiles indulgently and makes sure that Kushina walks into the house first.


	4. Chapter 4

thank you to those of you who have been reading! i just discovered ff net's traffic stats thing. it's interesting to see who's reading my story from where. i gotta say, this site has upgraded a lot since i last used it uh... ten years ago... wow ten years. whatever, i'm still in the springtime of my youth!

mini time skip. i imagine mikoto and kushina to be about ten now. this is set sometime before their academy graduation at eleven in this universe.

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><p>After Honda-sensei lets the class out, Mikoto automatically heads towards the training fields she and Kushina always use. Tae-sensei and her team had gone back to Uzushiogakure years ago, and their leader had never bothered to send another one in its place. Mikoto thinks that Kushina must miss them, but her friend never says anything about it.<p>

She is very surprised when Kushina stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, uh," Kushina lets go and then fiddles with her fingers awkwardly before bursting out with, "I'll treat you to ramen!"

Mikoto realizes her mouth is hanging open and closes it. "Really?"

Kushina scowls. "You don't need to sound so surprised."

"I'm just..." Mikoto trails off, looking closely at the way Kushina is avoiding looking into her eyes directly. Her friend keeps her face turned slightly to the side, though she is obviously watching Mikoto carefully out of the corner of her eye. Mikoto gives up her half completed defensive sentence and just smiles. "Thank you."

Kushina perks up considerably, and hooks their arms together as she drags Mikoto off in the opposite direction of the practice fields. "You won't regret this! I'll treat you to the best bowl of ramen you've ever eaten in your life!"

Bemused, Mikoto asks, "We're going to Ichiraku's right?"

"Exactly!" Kushina cries.

Mikoto thinks about pointing out that they eat there every week. "Okay," she says instead.

When they arrive at the stall, Kushina says, "Um, you, uh, go ahead. I just gotta- yeah." She ducks out of sight, and Mikoto hears the telltale sounds of Kushina rattling her pockets to see what change she has.

She feels a huge wave of affection for her friend. She had already worked out an arrangement with Teuchi-san a couple years ago - she would pay for the ramen, and he would continue to (occasionally) accept Kushina's money and store it so sometime in the future Mikoto could figure out a way to give it back to Kushina without offending her best friend.

It isn't pity. Mikoto has the money, her family can afford it, but Kushina only has the allowance she is given each month as a ward of the Hokage. It's an investment! Kushina can pay her back when they're both genin and making their own money.

When Mikoto pushes back the familiar curtain of Ichiraku's stall though, she is pleasantly surprised to see that there are already some people there.

"Beloved granddaughter!" Kagami-ojiisama greets Mikoto, his eyes twinkling merrily.

Surprised, but very pleased to see him, Mikoto responds politely with, "Honored grandfather." Then she throws her arms around him. "I missed you! I thought you were out on a mission for at least another few days!"

"Alas, the stars aligned and my natural efficiency combined with my dear student's ingenuity meant that everything went uncomfortably well," Kagami-ojiisama ruffles the silver hair of the younger man sitting next to him, making the other man sputter indignantly.

"I'm not a kid anymore!" Sakumo protests as Mikoto seats herself next to her grandfather.

"Ha ha ha," Mikoto's grandfather chuckles. "You'll always be young to me, my precious little student. I confess, this might be because the image of that one time you-"

Sakumo waves his hands in the air frantically. "Stop! Stop! I'll be young forever, just stop telling this story!"

"Alright, calm down," Kagami-ojiisama says, but winks at Mikoto, making her giggle.

Teuchi-san places bowls of ramen in front of them both, and Kagami-ojiisama sighs with pleasure and some nostalgia. "I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop," he admits, "It's hard to believe that my last mission could go so well."

"Ah, I remember feeling the same way when I retired," Teuchi-san sighs. "How time flies..."

"Maybe I should open my own ramen stall!" Kagami-ojiisama jokes.

Teuchi-san laughs, but there's a dangerous glint in his eye. "Please do. I would welcome the competition."

Kagami-ojiisama laughs nervously. "On second thought..." Sakumo pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.

Kushina finally comes in, breaking the tension, and nods casually at Kagami-ojiisama. "Hey there, old man."

He nods at Kushina solemnly as he cracks open his chopsticks. "Red-haired Menace."

Mikoto grins when Kushina sputters in fury. Kagami-ojiisama is her favorite elder. He takes far too much glee in ruffling people's feathers.

"I don't see what you're smiling about," Kagami-ojiisama says, wagging a finger at her. "We call_ you_ the Constant Menace."

"A title I bear with pride," Mikoto replies with all seriousness, and orders herself and Kushina shio ramen.

"No, two tonkotsu," Kushina declares boldly.

Mikoto nearly gives herself whiplash turning to look at Kushina. Tonkotsu ramen is 40 ryo more expensive than miso, shio and shouyu - it is very unlike Kushina to go for it when she's paying. Kushina flushes and avoids Mikoto's eyes again.

"Two tonkotsu, coming up!" Teuchi-san responds agreeably.

"Going for the big guns, are we, kid?" Sakumo comments, peering around Mikoto and her grandfather to grin at Kushina.

Kushina lifts her chin haughtily. "Tonkotsu is Mikoto's favorite," she informs Sakumo coolly. "And she's my best friend, so she deserves nice things."

It's touching, but for the first time, a heavy pit of worry starts to brew in Mikoto's stomach. Whatever Kushina has to tell her, it must be something big. Maybe something _bad_.

What if Uzushiogakure wants Kushina to go back home? Mikoto's heart sinks. She has never considered the possibility before - she had just assumed that Kushina's enrollment at the Academy was a sign that she was now part of Konohagakure forever.

Kushina is her best friend too. Mikoto selfishly doesn't want her to leave - although, if she missed her own village, her old friends, Mikoto supposes she couldn't blame her. It wasn't as if the citizens of Konoha were especially nice to Kushina. Their classmates knew better than to mess with Kushina now, but civilians would whisper behind their backs about the strange foreign girl with her bright red hair and loud voice. Older shinobi tended to either be carefully cordial or (sometimes mockingly) obsequious.

Mikoto sometimes wonders if it makes it worse that Kushina is _her_ best friend. Being an Uchiha isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Mikoto gets her own share of whispering from the civilians and careful treatment, and there is the constant undertone of fear and wariness that grates at Mikoto's composure. The Uchiha run the police, but Setsuna Uchiha's attempt at a coup was only been one generation ago. People didn't forget so easily.

"_And_ I'm not a kid!" Kushina says proudly, "Me and Mikoto are going to graduate from the Academy soon and then we're gonna be official Konoha genin!" She grins at Mikoto and raises her hand for a high-five.

Just like that, Mikoto's fear and worry is dispelled. Mikoto grins back unabashedly and high-fives Kushina back without reserve. "You're my best friend too, Kushina," she says, feeling a little shy.

"Tonkotsu's ready!" Teuchi announces, and places it in front of Mikoto and Kushina. He winks at them. "On the house today! I just can't help being moved by seeing such a beautiful friendship!"

"Whoo-hoo!" Kushina cheers, and begins to dig in. Mikoto does the same, hiding a smile.

Sakumo says suspiciously, "Has Dai been coming around here a lot recently?"

Kagami-ojiisama says, just as suspiciously, "When you say 'on the house,' does that mean on _my_ bill?"

Teuchi-san just smiles benignly as the girls dig in and doesn't answer.

For a few moments, there's only the sound of the four of them tucking in, and then Teuchi-san starts regaling Kushina and Mikoto with the story of how he decided to open Ichiraku. Kushina is enraptured, nodding vigorously and gasping at all the right parts, even as noodles dangle from her mouth. Teuchi-san is a good story teller. Mikoto's heard this story maybe a hundred thousand times, but whenever Teuchi-san starts telling it, she gets sucked right in.

Suddenly, she hears Sakumo say quietly, "Sensei, I think I just understood what you meant about seeing me as young." She glances over at Kushina, but her friend is focusing intensely on the story (and her ramen). Mikoto realizes that it is only because she's sitting by her grandfather that she can hear them speaking.

Kagami-ojiisama doesn't say anything at first, too busy eating his ramen. Then he sits back and sets a heavy hand on Sakumo's shoulder. "The war will be over soon, Sakumo, and your son will be able to grow up during peacetime thanks to your efforts. Think about that instead."

"You must have thought so too, back during the first war," Sakumo mutters.

There's a long moment of silence again, and Kagami-ojiisama says, "You're too young to be so pessimistic, Sakumo. You've got a beautiful wife who is going to give you a beautiful baby who will hopefully be twice as smart as your sorry ass."

Sakumo lets out a bark of laughter. "I can only hope." He turns his attentions back to his ramen.

"Yes," Kagami-ojiisama says. "You have to hope." Then he turns and looks very sternly down at Mikoto.

Face burning at being caught eavesdropping, Mikoto turns back to concentrate on eating her ramen. Kushina has already inhaled all of hers.

Soon enough, Kagami-ojiisama slaps down some money on the counter and announces, "Two beers, Teuchi-san! It's on me, for my precious little student is about to spawn a new generation!"

Kushina grimaces. "I don't want to hear anything about spawning! Come on, Mikoto, let's go." She hops off her stool and heads out.

"Enjoy the rest of your meal, honored grandfather," Mikoto says hurriedly and slides off her stool to bow quickly. She doesn't want to hear anything about spawning either. "I'll see you back at home." Cheekily, she winks at Teuchi-san, who chortles, and adds, "Thank you for the ramen."

"See you soon, my most beloved constant menace," her grandfather says indulgently, waving her off. She rolls her eyes at him and then runs out after Kushina.

Kushina is walking quietly, her gaze turned inwards. It is so unlike her to spend time being introspective when they could be training or playing pranks or _anything_ else, that it makes Mikoto a little nervous. She wages a silent inner debate about whether to broach the topic of whatever is on Kushina's mind, but after a long moment of indecision, Mikoto settles for simply keeping Kushina company as they walk through the village.

To her surprise, Kushina takes them to the diplomatic residences. She walks in absentmindedly, and leaves the door open behind her. Mikoto's never been in there before. She doesn't even know if she's allowed.

She hesitates outside the door.

"Kushina?" she calls out. When there is no answer, she tentatively reaches out to pull the door open wider so that she can enter.

Kushina stands in the middle of the room, arms folded across her chest as she stares down an old woman standing in the doorway, half in shadow so Mikoto cannot see her clearly.

"I made my decision," Kushina says.

The old woman laughs softly. "I can see that. Are you sure about this?"

Kushina nods, but she's pale and it's obvious that she is nervous. "Mikoto is my friend. My _best_ friend. I trust her, and I..." She looks down at the ground and scuffs her toe against the ground. "I don't want to do this alone."

"Kushina?" Mikoto says again, moving to her side. "What's happening? Are you okay?"

Kushina grabs her hand and squeezes, hard. She looks Mikoto right in the eye for the first time all day. "Please don't be afraid of me," she begs.

Perplexed, Mikoto says, "I would never. Why would I?"

The old woman steps out of the shadows, and Kushina shrinks away from Mikoto to stand at the old woman's side.

The old woman is wearing a simple, but elegant high collared kimono, and her gray hair is done up in two buns on either side of her head. A flicker of memory, her mother's voice telling her the story of the founders of Konohagakure-

Mikoto falls to her knees and bows her head. "Mito-sama," she says, reverently.

Who doesn't know the great hero Uzumaki Mito, wife of the Shodaime, who subdued the Nine-Tailed Fox? Mikoto's hands are shaking. People only ever talk about Mito-sama as a legend. Legends are larger than life, they're not _real._

Mito-sama says, "I suppose you have questions. It will be easier to answer them over some refreshments. Please, come in." She sweeps gracefully into the back room, Kushina following at her heels.

Mikoto hesitates one more time. She glances behind her at the door that leads back outside, and then back at the open doorway Kushina and Mito-sama had disappeared through. For a fleeting moment, she considers running away from this big mysterious thing that Kushina is leading her into.

She takes an uncertain step forward.

_I don't want her to leave,_ Mikoto remembers, _and I don't want to leave her alone. I'm her best friend, and she's my best friend too._

Another step forward, more confident.

Then another. She's at the doorway now.

Mikoto hesitates one more time. She suddenly thinks, with a startling clarity,_ If I turn around now, I will never be able to give Kushina her ramen money back._

She takes a deep breath and commits to the decision she's already made. She lifts her chin and straightens her back, and walks all the way into the room.


	5. Chapter 5

this was going to be a short, quick reflection chapter, and then it turned out that mito is not so accepting of kushina's trust in mikoto afterall. kushina is not even really in this chapter, though she is floating around the periphery of what is happening. i skipped over the explanation of the nine-tails, because if you're reading this you probably already know what the nine-tails is.

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><p>Mito-sama is not looking at Mikoto. Her full attention seems to be on refilling all their cups with tea.<p>

However, Mikoto can feel the full weight of her judgement weighing down on her own shoulders. For the first time, she feels keenly aware of her own yawning inadequacies.

Kushina is in the other room, getting more snacks. Mikoto has the sneaking suspicion that her friend is not going to come back to save her before Mito-sama has said all that she means to say.

Mito-sama sets the teapot down with a soft thunk. The tension in Mikoto's body ratchets up significantly. She can feel her shoulders begin to creep upwards towards her ears.

When the old woman finally speaks, her voice is deceptively gentle. "If you know the stories of me, you must know the stories of the founding of this village." She pauses, and then fixes Mikoto with a piercing look. "Of your ancestor."

Madara. Mito-sama is talking about Madara.

"Yes," Mikoto says. She can't do anything but be helplessly honest before this woman and her eyes that seem to see right into Mikoto's soul.

"Then you understand me when I say that if it were my choice, it would not be you sitting here before me," Mito-sama says.

Mikoto looks down at her hands in shame, and bobs her head in understanding. Madara left the Uchiha a legacy of warring loyalties: to their family and to Konoha, when they should be one and the same. All Uchiha have borne the burden of this. To Konoha, they present themselves as a united family, and to the world they set themselves at Konoha's side; but at family meetings, the number of people who vocally support Setsuna Uchiha's failed rebellion are just as great as the number who argue that Konoha is not the enemy.

Mikoto started attending these meetings last year. Fugaku too. He is unusually quiet compared to the snarky bully persona he adopts at the Academy. He keeps his eyes down while sitting next to his mother when their elders argue about whether the cause his father had died for was worth anything or not.

Mito-sama says kindly, "I know that it must be very difficult for you. You are very young, and you bear the burden of generations past. It is unfair." For a moment, her eyes seem to see through Mikoto and into the past. Then her face hardens, and the sharpness is back. "However, now you know of the risks I - and Kushina - take by sharing this secret with you. I confess to feeling... conflicted that she has chosen you to be her confidante."

Mikoto does not know what to say, though Mito-sama stares at her expectantly. Her mind is reeling with the information that the Nine-Tails Fox has been in the village this whole time, that Mito-sama is its current vessel and Kushina will be its next. She understands the risks in theoretical terms - she has never witnessed the power of the Nine-Tails, only heard the stories of its propensity for destruction.

But she knows that it was an Uchiha who took control of the Nine-Tails the first time, though it was an Uzumaki who sealed it away. For Mito-sama, who has witnessed generations of one man's deep-set grudge turning against her home, it must be terrible and frightening to trust the judgement of her young successor that any Uchiha is trustworthy enough to share the knowledge of the Nine-Tails with.

Mikoto has never felt so truly young and frightened and small in her whole life, for all that she is a small girl, smaller than all of her cousins even though she is the oldest of her wave of this generation of Uchiha. The weight of the trust Kushina has invested in her, that Mito-sama is trying to impress upon her, suddenly seems as great and terrible a burden as the legacy of hate and distrust that Madara has sown within her own family.

Truthfully, when it comes down to it, Mikoto doesn't know what she would do if her family forced her to choose between Konoha and the Uchiha. She'd just hoped that she would never have to think about it. After all, as long as the number of influential elders on either side of the Uchiha divide stay approximately equal, and as long as Fugaku continues to keep his mouth shut and stay neutral on this topic, it will never go anywhere. Setsuna's failure was a lesson to all those who might do the same, since it was an Uchiha who betrayed his plan to the Hokage and arrested him to face his crimes against their village: his wife, and current clan head, Uchiha Manae.

Mikoto forces her shaking hands to stop, and smooths the invisible wrinkles in her clothes over her knees. Her face, she knows, is still and calm as her mother has always taught her to maintain when she is in a situation where she does not feel safe.

When she opens her mouth, she doesn't know what she is going to say until it is said.

"My father died to protect this village."

Mito-sama goes almost imperceptibly still.

Mikoto continues, staring unseeingly in the direction of Mito-sama's shoulder. "Six years ago, he was sent on a mission and he never returned. I know he's dead. He would have come back if h-he wasn't." Her voice breaks a little near the end, and she takes a moment to modulate her breathing and calm down. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes, but Mikoto breathes through it and blinks the moisture away.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, even though it is a sign of weakness. Her thoughts crash against each other in agony at the remembrance of her kind, smiling father, leaving a startling clarity in their wake.

Mikoto squares her shoulders and looks Mito-sama in the eyes. "I don't know what will happen from here. I don't know what kind of tests my loyalties will endure in the future. But my dream is to protect my village and my friends as a proud shinobi of Konoha. That was my father's dream, and that has always been my grandfather's dream, and it is mine now too. Madara is not the only Uchiha to leave behind a legacy, Mito-sama. I won't be the kind of person who doesn't stand by her best friend to face any obstacle that is thrown in our way. I will protect this village side by side with my friends for the rest of my life. That is going to be my ninja way."

Mito-sama looks at her for a long moment without saying anything and tilts her head thoughtfully. "Who is this grandfather of you speak, young Uchiha?"

Mikoto tilts her chin up with pride. "Uchiha Kagami."

Mito-sama reaches for her tea cup and slowly brings it up to her lips and takes a sip, appearing to mull something over. "Only one of Kagami's children has a daughter. You have an older brother, correct?"

Startled, Mikoto says without thinking, "You know my family?" Hers is only a very minor branch family of the Uchiha, significant only because of her father's contributions to the first and second shinobi wars.

Mito-sama smiles enigmatically. "Your grandfather was one of my students, once upon a time. He sometimes remembers to come give his regards to his old teacher." She purses her lips, and then smiles again. "Please pass on my congratulations for the birth of his great-grandchild. I am sure you must be very pleased to be an aunt."

"Thank you," Mikoto says numbly. Obito was born just last month, a squalling, shrieking ball of noise that everyone in the house is preoccupied with. He shares his birthday with her grandfather. Kagami-ojiisama had affectionately called Obito his birthday present for having managed to live so long, but had hastily taken it back when Ayame, her cousin, had pinned him with such a look of fury for making _fourteen hours of labor_ all about him. She hadn't even needed to say anything. Mikoto greatly admires her.

Mito-sama takes another sip of tea, and then seems to come to a decision. "Kushina," she calls mildly, "Please stop hanging outside the door and come in, will you?"

Kushina slinks in sheepishly, carrying a tray of sweets. "I wasn't eavesdropping," she says, giving away the fact she absolutely had been. She sets the tray down on the table and sits by Mito-sama. She smiles shyly at Mikoto. She's probably been listening from the beginning.

_I won't be the kind of person who doesn't stand by her best friend to face any obstacle that is thrown in our way. I will protect this village side by side with my friends for the rest of my life. That is going to be my ninja way._

Mikoto's calm exterior quivers, and then breaks when she smiles back.

"Now," Mito-sama says decisively, "we still have much to talk about. Let's get on with it before the tea gets cold."

"Yes, Mito-sama," both girls say, almost in unison.

It takes up the rest of the evening and Mikoto doesn't get home until late. Her mother questions her, but she says, "Training went long," and waves off dinner to go to her room.

She dreams that night of facing a massive fox with nine tails blocking out the moon, her classmates and her village and her family behind her, Kushina at her side.


	6. Chapter 6

It's so early in the morning that the coming sunrise is only a hint of gray in the dark. Mikoto has to sneak out of her house and then out of the Uchiha complex to meet Kushina for what Kushina calls, "The swan song of my reign as prank master!" Honda-sensei has had ample time to regret letting Minato graduate early - with her favorite target gone on some sort of extended training trip, Kushina seems to have made her goal in life turning his already salt-and-pepper hair entirely white.

Graduation exams are coming up soon though, and Honda-sensei has expressed (with no small amount of relief) that he expects both of them to pass with flying colors.

The pack on her back is heavy. She's got a paint can, the harness, and two very long ropes that they can use to lower Kushina over the side of the cliff. This is Kushina's prank: Mikoto is just there to do the heavy lifting.

When she gets up to the top of the mountain, Kushina is already waiting. She waves wildly at Mikoto with a huge grin on her face until Mikoto lets out a small helpless chuckle and waves back. Kushina's excitement gives Mikoto an extra boost of energy to jog up the rest of the way to join her friend.

"Alright, check this out," Kushina says happily, "I came up with this just now, I think Mito-sama would love it." She starts digging through her pack, muttering to herself about how she _swore_ she'd put it right over there...

Mikoto is relieved to see Kushina in such high spirits.

The kyuubi had been transferred safely over a month ago. Kushina had asked Mikoto to be there with her with such a hopeful expression that, despite her misgivings, Mikoto had agreed. Mito-sama's expression when the ANBU escorting Kushina to the far off cave had arrived with an apprehensive Mikoto in tow had been almost aggressively neutral, but she had allowed Mikoto to stay.

As Kushina chatters and pulls things out of her bag in search of whatever she wants to show Mikoto, Mikoto's mind drifts back to the memory of that night.

Mikoto was introduced to an old man named Ashina who was apparently Kushina's_ father_. He had laughed at Mikoto's shock and her stuttered greetings, and then smoothed a pouting Kushina's hair and kissed her forehead.

"Kushina was the most welcome surprise my wife and I ever had," he said affectionately. "We could not have been happier or more proud of such a wonderfully brave and strong little girl." There was such frank adoration in his eyes when he said it, and it was reflected in Kushina's eyes when she gazed back at him.

Mikoto looked away. It wasn't that she was jealous. It wouldn't be fair to feel envious of something she herself once had, and she couldn't deny Kushina even in her heart the chance to enjoy being with her father again after being on her own so long in Konoha. It just seemed too personal, for both Kushina and for Mikoto to be watching the father and daughter reconnect.

She was shaken out of her thoughts by Mito-sama's hand coming down to squeeze her shoulder. When Mikoto looked up at the old woman, Mito-sama was smiling gently down at her. For once, her gentleness seemed fully genuine and comforting instead of tempered with caution and warning. Mikoto smiled tentatively back.

Mito-sama blinked and then raised her hand to stroke Mikoto's cheek. Mikoto had the feeling that Mito-sama saw her, but was thinking of someone else. There wasn't really any other explanation for the sudden welling of emotion in Mito-sama's eyes.

Legends weren't supposed to cry either, Mikoto was pretty sure. Legends weren't supposed to be as petty and human as the rest of the people of the world.

But legends were human, weren't they? Like Mito-sama, they had friends and family, lost husbands and children and grandchildren, experienced anger and fear and sadness. Why wouldn't they be just as petty? Just as human?

The tears in Mito-sama's eyes didn't spill out, but Mikoto was old enough to recognize grief when she saw it. She did what her mother always did when Mikoto felt sad because of her father. She moved cautiously, just in case Mito-sama objected, but when Mikoto raised her arms to offer a hug, Mito-sama bent down to accept it.

When Mito-sama let go, her eyes were still shiny but focused. "Thank you, Mikoto," she said. Mikoto's response died in her throat when she suddenly realized Mito-sama had never called her anything but "young Uchiha" before.

"Should we wait?" Ashina asked kindly. "The sealing will take some time, but there's no rush."

"No," Mito-sama replied, her voice soft and sad. "I wasn't expecting anyone else. Let's get started."

There were two hospital beds set parallel to each other deep in the room. Mito-sama went to lie down flat on her back on one, and after a moment of hesitation, Kushina went to do the same on the other. Ashina went to stand between the two beds.

Mikoto wavered for a moment, but ultimately she went to Kushina's side instead of standing with him in the middle to give him room to work if he needed it. Kushina gave her a shaky smile when Mikoto took one of her hands. Kushina's grip was strong and sweaty.

Mikoto's palms were also sweaty, but she held on tightly.

A thick tension took over the room. The silent, masked ANBU standing at the entrances shifted restlessly.

"I will begin then," Ashina said solemnly.

"Wait!"

The sound of several kunai being thrown filled the air before Mikoto had quite processed what had happened. She turned to see a buxom blonde woman leveling an unimpressed look at the ANBU in the room, not a scratch on her. All the kunai were embedded in the wall behind her. Despite the masks, the ANBU managed to project sheepishness.

Mito-sama sat up gingerly. "Tsunade," she breathed.

"I got your message, Grandma," Tsunade, _one of the Sannin_, said roughly, and strode over to take Mito-sama's hand gently. "I had to come."

Mito-sama laid back down and smiled brightly up at her granddaughter. "I am happy that you did."

Mikoto, Kushina, and Ashina kept silent out of respect for the both of them, averting their eyes. After a moment, Mito-sama said with determination, "I'm ready, Ashina-san."

Ashina nodded. "I understand." Looking regretful, he added, "It would be better if there was no contact while we did this."

Mikoto and Tsunade met eyes, Tsunade looking briefly startled at Mikoto's presence, and then Mikoto looked at Kushina's pale face and squeezed her hand once before letting go.

Kushina managed a tight smile at her. "Don't be afraid," she said, voice hushed.

"I should be telling _you_ that," Mikoto replied, hiding her shaking hands by smoothing her clothes down.

"I'm n-not afraid," Kushina said resolutely, but her voice faltered a little.

"Then I'm not either," Mikoto lied. "We'll be not afraid together."

Kushina laughed, too loud. "Okay!"

Ashina smiled, a fleeting happiness that turned grim. "Now. I will begin."

Mikoto doesn't really remember much of what happened after. She remembers a sudden feeling of air being sucked out of the room, and then the creeping sense of dread crawling across her skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.

And then the kyuubi had risen up from Mito-sama's body, shrieking with fury.

Mikoto had never seen the Nine-Tails Fox before. She'd heard stories, but the stories didn't talk about the way the kyuubi's malevolent killing intent could fill a room to the brim and sink into her bones.

All of her instincts told her to run, but both terror and her commitment to standing by Kushina's side in even this had frozen her muscles into noncompliance. The only thing Mikoto managed to do was stumble back a little. Her breath was too loud in her ears but she barely noticed as she stared, quaking, as the kyuubi's head manifested itself over Mito-sama's body.

Its chakra was so great and terrible that even Mikoto, who was no sensor, could see the concentrated strands of its chakra rising up from Mito-sama's body. Mikoto watched, horrified, as Ashina led one of those thick, pulsing lines of power to sink into Kushina's body.

Tears were streaming out of Mikoto's eyes. She was - she was nothing, she was an insignificant _speck_ of WASTE and the kyuubi would _obliterate her existence from the world_ - she couldn't breathe, she -

Hands clutching painfully hard onto Mikoto's upper arms broke her out of her spiraling terror, Tsunade's concerned face filling her vision. "Brat, pull yourself together," the older woman snapped, who looked concerned despite her harsh words.

"I-I," Mikoto stammered. Her eyes, unbidden, dragged themselves away from Tsunade's face to see the kyuubi howling as it was dragged down into Kushina's tiny body. It seemed to go on forever. Tsunade was shaking her and saying something, but all Mikoto could do was stare dumbly, a witness to a great horror that Kushina was sacrificing _herself_ to contain.

Somewhere deep in her mind, a part of her that was not panicking and screaming in fear was collecting her scattered thoughts and using them to solidify her resolve.

Kushina was doing this to protect the village. The least Mikoto could do was stand by her and do whatever she could to do the same.

She took a step forward, forgetting Tsunade was in front of her, but Tsunade let go of her, her brow furrowed and her hands still held out as if she was afraid Mikoto might topple over at any moment. _Mikoto _thought that she might topple over at any moment. The raging chakra seemed to be everywhere, inescapable, and it _burned_.

The second step to bring her to Kushina's side again felt like the greatest, most arduous distance Mikoto had ever traveled. She didn't know how she made it, but suddenly she was standing over Kushina again.

Kushina's eyes were wide and terrified when Mikoto looked at her.

"Don't be afraid," Mikoto said, or maybe she didn't. She felt her mouth move but she couldn't hear over the roaring in her ears, the screams of the kyuubi as it was resealed into a new vessel.

Kushina opened her mouth - and her soundless scream seemed to go on forever.

And then it was over.

"A_ha_!" Kushina crows suddenly, snatching Mikoto's wandering mind back to the present. She triumphantly presents Mikoto with a scroll. Mikoto takes it, an eyebrow raised, and then opens it.

It's a rough sketch of the Hokage memorial, but with a small addition. To the Shodaime's left, Kushina has added a sketch of Mito-sama's face.

Mikoto's face flushes with emotion. She hadn't been close to Mito-sama, but she hadn't expected the old woman to pass away quietly in her sleep a few days after the transfer of the kyuubi. To her own surprise, she'd cried there at Mito-sama's bedside as the old woman lay there peacefully in her bed as if she was simply asleep. Tsunade and Kushina hadn't seemed surprised. Apparently the only one who didn't know that the transfer meant the end of Mito-sama's life had been Mikoto.

Kushina hadn't cried. Not in front of Mikoto, at least. Instead, she had just been unusually quiet and solemn. She and her father spent a lot of time together before he left to return to Whirlpool country, leaving Mikoto to putter around her own home like a unhappy raincloud of sadness. It was terrible not being able to tell her family _why_ she was sad, but she was eternally grateful for the fact her mother didn't press and gave her as many hugs as she asked for.

"Well?" Kushina asks hopefully. "What do you think?"

"It's perfect," Mikoto says. She doesn't know whether Mito-sama would like it, as the old woman seemed to prefer to stick to the shadows and avoid glory, but Mikoto can't help thinking that it's a worthy tribute. "Let's do it."

The hardest part of undertaking the greatest prank ever turns out to be opening the cans of paint. Kushina accidentally left the can opener in another pack and now she is trying to gnaw it open with her teeth.

"Stupid fox," Kushina huffs, taking a break to glare at the cans. "I don't even get fangs or anything to help me with this."

Mikoto props her chin up in her hand, amused. She pulls a kunai out of her new weapons pouch, a gift from her grandfather in anticipation for her first "mission" as the scroll Mito-sama had provided her to give to her family called her time in the caves. ("Sensei," her mother had said, exasperated, but her grandfather had only winked at Mikoto and ruffled her mother's hair fondly to hear to her complain.)

Mikoto offers up the kunai and says, "Maybe you could use this instead?"

Kushina freezes, her face abruptly burning bright red, and then holds her hand out petulantly. Mikoto hands it over, unable to stop from smiling. She doesn't know how her friend can be so strong and so bright and full of life even after what happened. It's inspiring is what it is.

Not for the first time, Mikoto has the niggling feeling that she needs Kushina in her life more than Kushina needs her. It's humbling, and it makes Mikoto determined to be stronger and do whatever she can to support Kushina as her friend.

"I woulda come up with that eventually too," Kushina mutters. Mikoto nods agreeably, and checks the makeshift harness she's attached to Kushina once more time.

"Ready?" she asks.

Kushina visibly checks for the paint pail and paint pail attached with thick rope to the harness, gives the kunai a hard look, and then says, "Mikoto, where should I put this so it won't stab me?"

Mikoto giggles - reluctantly, because it feels wrong to be laughing, but those words are just so Kushina that she can't help it. She unstraps her weapons pouch altogether off of her leg, and hands it to Kushina. "Just try not to get paint on it."

"Mikoto, you..." Kushina's eyes are suspiciously shiny, which is the only warning Mikoto gets before Kushina throws her arms around her shoulders. "You're the best friend ever! If I get paint on your new weapons pouch, I promise you I'll buy you a new one!"

"Kushina," Mikoto laughs, feeling unbearably and guiltily lighthearted, "I was just saying that. I wasn't serious!"

"Still," Kushina insists. "It's the_ principle_ of the thing."

"Save your money for your own weapons pouch," Mikoto advises. "I can live with a little paint."

Kushina nods against her cheek and gingerly takes the weapons pouch out of Mikoto's hands and straps it on. "Alright, I'm ready. Let's go."

Mikoto nods and then takes firm hold of one of the ropes that has already been wrapped around a sturdy tree. The other is tied securely, though they've left a lot of give for it. "Let's do this."

(When morning comes, it casts light on the red paint outlining a slightly lopsided figure with distinctive buns on its head drawn next to the Shodaime. There are also, incidentally, random streaks of paint all over the Shodaime's face, ostensibly from when Kushina lost her balance and accidentally flailed red paint all over his face. There's a huge streak over the left side of the Nidaime's face where Mikoto accidentally knocked over a pail of pail over the cliff and an unfortunate thick red line running down from the Sandaime's nose where Mikoto's hand slipped a little and Kushina had been holding her paintbrush _just_ so.

Nobody sees Kushina and Mikoto sneaking back down the mountain, except for an ANBU member assigned to watch the newest jinchuuriki, but he reports only to the Hokage. Regardless, less than an hour after daybreak, at least half the village is roused by the sound of Honda-sensei shouting, _"Uzumaki!_" The Sandaime, looking out his window at the monument, experiences a sense of wry amusement at the sight of red paint dripping out of his stone image's nose.

Tsunade, standing far enough away from the village not to be detected by the guards, only has eyes for the outline of her grandmother on the face of the cliff. There's a small smile on her lips despite the tears in her eyes. "Goodbye, grandmother." Then, once more, she turns her back on her village, taking her private grief with her.)


	7. Chapter 7

i want to give a shout out to those people who have reviewed so far! it's a _huge _boost to my writing energies and make me feel all warm and fuzzy. thank you! also, i obviously lied about the once a week thing. i don't know what is happening, i literally just wrote three chapters in two days. i'll post those up throughout the week, i think.

this intermission exists basically because i love kushina and wanted to write some back story for her. also, it's a slightly different style here, more omniscient and a bit more fairytale-esque to break up the narrative. imagining kushina's family was fun.

* * *

><p><strong>intermission: kushina<strong>

Kushina is the daughter that Ashina and Moe didn't expect. The smallest age gap between her and her siblings is fifteen years and the largest is thirty-five. They all love the addition of another sister to their family, though they all have to consciously _not _think with fervor about the fact that apparently their parents still, ahem ahem. Nevermind._  
><em>

Everyone is delighted when it turns out she is the best and brightest of them all. She learns and understands seal theory like she's reading the alphabet, and by three she's almost as good at drawing them as their father. Her chakra reserve blows all of them out of the water, and while she's not great at control, she's an incredible sensor. She can recognize them by their _chakra. _None of them had even known that was possible. "My little genius baby," Moe coos at her littlest daughter.

They are all very indulgent with her and spoil her recklessly, which they realize too late means that she doesn't learn that their usual family dynamic is not necessarily suited for making friends among other kids in her age group. She blusters and bumbles through social interaction, and the first time someone makes fun of her, she punches him in the face and is bewildered when her playmates walk on eggshells around her after that.

'Ah,' third sister Kiyomi says in response when the playgroup instructor furiously brings it up later that day, 'That's how we express affection and respect in our family, yanno. Sorry about that.'

The playgroup instructor is speechless, but apparently doesn't have the guts to voice her response to that. It's probably for the best.

Kushina is quiet as Kiyomi carries her home. When Kiyomi puts her down in front of the house, Kushina is sulking.

Kiyomi kneels down to talk to Kushina at her level. 'What up, cutie?'

'Nobody wan's ta play with me,' Kushina says resentfully. 'Now they're _really _not gon' wanna.'

'Aw, kid,' Kiyomi says, 'That's not true. Even if it is, it just means they're a bunch of yellow bellied suckers who need a good smack to the head anyway. And if they didn't wanna get smacked, they oughta learn how to get outta the way.'

'Yeah?' Kushina asks hopefully.

'Oh yeah,' Kiyomi says wisely. It'll probably work itself out. Either way, Kushina's got two parents who are the head of the clan and eight siblings on her side, not to mention all their assorted relatives and friends.

A few weeks later though, they get a message from Konoha. From Mito.

Ashina's in full clan head mode when he begins the family meeting. 'It's about the kyuubi,' he says.

'The wha?' Kushina asks.

Ichiro smiles over at her. 'You remember your history lessons? About Mito-sama, who married the first Hokage?'

Kushina's mouth shapes into an O. 'Ooooh. The one who sealed the fox?' Her eyes light up in understanding. 'The Nine-Tailed Fox is the kyuubi!'

Daisuke ruffles her hair. 'You're a smart kid.' Kushina squeals in laughter as she bats at him.

'She says it's time,' Moe says softly. Mito is her older sister. No one knows this but their immediate family. It's safer that their connection to the first jinchuuriki is not well known. Bad people sometimes target loved ones to control a Tailed Beast by using the bonds of its vessel. Hashirama was strong, but he is dead now, as are his children and their grandchildren. Now, with one granddaughter left, Mito has faded into obscurity.

It's only their family that has displays the potential to survive and maybe even prosper being next jinchuuriki. That sobers them all up.

Big brother Ichiro speaks first. 'I should go. I am the oldest.'

'Old man,' big sister Youko chuckles, 'I have the greatest chakra reserve and I am more youthful and beautiful besides. It should be me.'

Second and third brothers Daisuke and Yuuto say, at the same time, 'No way, it should be, _shut up would you_-' and begin brawling.

Second sister Miku speaks up in turn, 'Of all of us, only I have specialized specifically in studying the Tailed Beasts. It ought to be me.'_  
><em>

'But I specialize in sealing, which is more practical as a jinchuuriki so if we're going by specialization, it ought to be me,' Kiyomi disagrees.

Fourth brother Akira says quietly, 'I have the most precise chakra control, and I have studied medical ninjustsu most thoroughly. It should be me.'

The seven of them argue among each other, not wanting to let any of the others put themselves forward. They all know that to be chosen means a life of solitude, away from Uzushiogakure and their family. That is their core of their agreement with Konoha. Their family will bear the burden of being the jinchuuriki, and Konoha will protect their family and stand by Uzushiogakure as their ally.

Fourth sister Hikari is just turned twenty, but she is no less determined. She stands up, and her voice rises above all her siblings, demanding to be heard. 'I am the youngest!' Her siblings settle down, their voices fading away as they stare at her. Hikari continues stubbornly on. 'I am the youngest, and I have my whole life ahead of me. It will be easy for me to relocate to Konoha. I have no husband or wife, no children, and I can make new friends. I already know a few shinobi who live in the Leaf. I would be a fine ambassador to send to Konoha.'

'You're engaged,' Yuuto points out.

'I know my duty to my village,' Hikari says stubbornly.

Ashina closes his eyes, and Moe hides her face.

'Hikari,' Ashina says heavily, 'All the points you have made are valuable. But you are not the youngest.'

Gasps go around the room. Hikari's knees fail her and she sits back down, hard, just as Ichiro stands and says, 'No!'

Ashina's eyes are still closed, like he can not look any of them in the eye. 'She is young, and it will be easier for her to create bonds of friendship with the next generation of Leaf shinobi, especially if we enroll her in their Academy. She has no wife or husband, no children to support. Her chakra reserves are greater than even yours, Youko, and control can be learned. And, she has no reputation outside of Uzushiogakure - all of my children have proven themselves proud shinobi of Uzushiogakure to our village and to others. Kushina is the best candidate to send to Konohagakure.'

'_Father,_' Ichiro insists, 'She is only a child.'

Kushina shrinks in her chair.

Youko says quietly, 'She is a very smart child. She would be a credit to Uzushiogakure.'

Ichiro gapes at her.

'Youko!' Daisuke cries.

Youko persists. 'She's talented at sealing, and shows much promise to become a very powerful shinobi.'

Kiyomi waffles over whether she should say anything, but ultimately she adds, 'She has a strong heart, Ichiro. I believe in her.'

'As do I,' Yuuto puts in.

Daisuke looks at his twin, betrayed. 'It's like I don't even know you.'

Miku cuts in, 'None of you have asked the most important person here what she thinks yet.'

'And who is that?' Daisuke asks caustically.

Akira rolls his eyes at Daisuke, and says, 'Kushina, obviously.' Daisuke grimaces, chastised and regretting his harsh words.

Miku nods approvingly at Akira. She turns to Kushina, who is shaking in her seat, and lays a supportive hand on her shoulder. 'Kushina?'

Kushina says, in a very small voice, 'I would... be the vessel for the great Nine-Tailed Fox?'

'Yes,' Miku says.

'And I would go to Konoha? By myself? Without any of you?'

'Yes,' Miku says again.

Kushina is quiet for a little bit. Then she says, 'Uzumaki face danger head on.'

'Ah,' Kiyomi says. 'The family motto.'

'For Daisuke, it's head first,' Yuuto puts in, 'Brains second.'

'Shut _up_,' Daisuke says, and punches Yuuto in shoulder. Yuuto staggers a little, but smirks anyway, satisfied that he's gotten the last word in.

'You don't have to do this, sweetie,' Moe says, finally speaking up. Ashina, tellingly, does not respond to that. His eyes are still closed.

Kushina's eyes flicker from him, to her mother, to all the faces of her brothers and sisters. 'I can do it,' she says, with a confidence she doesn't feel. 'I _will _do it. I'll be the best ambassador to Konoha ever!'

'And jinchuuriki,' Akira adds quietly.

'Right, yeah, that thing too,' Kushina says, with all her five-year-old aplomb.

Moe's eyes fill up with tears, her heart heavy with unhappiness but light with pride. Ichiro has gone very pale.

Youko says, 'Let's sleep on it. We can talk about this again tomorrow. Konoha will expect us to need time to deliberate in any case. We can reconvene tomorrow.'

They all shuffle out of the room and to their own bedrooms or homes, preoccupied with the result of the family meeting. Even Ashina sighs heavily and lets Moe take his hand and lead him out of the room.

Only Hikari stays behind. Kushina goes to her, because her head is dipped down so that her hair covers her face and it is very unlike Hikari to be so quiet for so long.

She is shocked to find that Hikari is crying silently, tears streaming down her face.

'What's wrong?' Kushina panics, her hands fluttering uselessly. 'Hikari, what is it? You don't have to go! I already said I would!'

Hikari lets out a sob. 'Oh, Kushina, I'm so sorry,' she cries out.

'No, no,' Kushina says, confused. 'Why should you be?'

Hikari lowers her voice to a guilty whisper. 'When you said that you would go, I was so relieved.' She starts to cry harder, clutching Kushina's hands in hers. 'You're my baby sister,' she sobs uncontrollably. 'H-how could I be relieved that you were going instead of me? How can I hold my head up high as a shinobi of Uzushiogakure if I can find it within myself to throw my baby sister to the wolves?'

Kushina suddenly understands something. As Hikari cries, she considers the fact that Hikari has lived in Uzushiogakure for twenty years. She has a fiancee and friends and a career. Kushina is only five. She really does have her whole future ahead of her. In fact, a part of her is _excited _about the adventure of going to live in a new place. Meeting new people. Making new friends. Seeing new things.

Kushina firmly takes Hikari's hands in hers. '_Because _you're a shinobi of Uzushiogakure,' she says firmly.

Hikari hiccups in confusion.

Kushina beams at her sister. 'You've made this your home! This is my home too, but Konoha can also be my home. I'll carry all of you in my heart with me to Konoha and I'll be the best shinobi of Konohagakure the world has ever seen! Believe it!'

Hikari stares at her. Then to Kushina's shock, she begins bawling again. She wraps her arms around Kushina's shoulders and cries until Kushina forces her to stand up, follow her to the kitchen, and make herself a glass of warm milk.

Four months later, a well-respected jounin-sensei and her genin team escort the youngest princess of Uzushiogakure to the Hidden Village of the Leaf. And the rest, you may say, is history.


	8. Chapter 8

i was going to wait longer to post this, but i just hit 400 views and got a really sweet review! i'm happy that there are people that are actually reading this story considering it's about a character who is really not all that popular.

unfortunately, this chapter ended up being a little slow! frankly, i think the only thing this chapter really does is prove that i have spent way too much time thinking about the logistics of a ninja village. i actually had to split this chapter into two because it was way too long! hopefully you can start getting a sense of the different paths kushina and mikoto are about to embark on though.

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><p>The war has been over now, <em>officially<em>, for almost four months.

Truth be told, it has actually been over for more like eight. Otherwise, the Hokage wouldn't have let Kagami-ojiisama take his name off the active shinobi roster and retire to the dubiously less taxing lifestyle of being the Head of the Konoha Military Police Force almost six months ago now.

Konoha has been hit hard by the long years of war, but the Hidden Village of the Leaf has always been one of the bigger ninja villages and they benefit from the unwavering support of the Fire Daimyo. Their losses have been great, but they've been able to absorb it better through fostering good trade relations with other villages in the area by extending protection and escort services of the Konoha shinobi.

"Say what you will about my husband," Biwako-sensei says sagely, nodding her head, "But the man has _vision_. With this policy, he managed to change the image of our village completely - no longer simply a band of dangerous mercenaries gathered together in one place, but an important, _productive_ village of the Fire Country. At the time, the Council thought him quite mad for stretching out our resources so thin when we were in the middle of a war, but Hiruzen saw the value in allying ourselves not only to other shinobi villages, but to civilian villages as well. It gave civilians outside the village a reason to be invested in our survival and, I think, it was quite a mental boost for our own shinobi to make the shift from being only contracted killers and soldiers to also having the capacity and opportunity to protect and serve."

Inoichi says, "Um, with all due respect ma'am, we didn't say anything about the Sandaime."_  
><em>

He wilts when Biwako-sensei gives him a stern look. Then, for good measure, she looks around the small class of genin gathered before her, eyeballing them until they seem properly cowed. "You _better_ not," she says dangerously, "He may be just a man, but he is _my _husband and as Hokage of this village, he has devoted his life to this village. You _will _respect him. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am," the assorted group of genin mutter to the ground.

Mikoto swears that Biwako-sensei is staring at her the hardest, but she can't prove it.

"Speak up!" Biwako-sensei barks.

"Yes, _ma'am_," they all shout back in unison.

"Better," Biwako-sensei allows, looking pleased.

Everyone sits at their desk, spines straight. They have all learned from experience not to slouch in Biwako-sensei's class. Even Shikaku knows better now, though the look on his face of exhausted resignation makes Mikoto have to bite her lip to get from giggling.

"Alright," Biwako-sensei says, returning to their lesson briskly. "Now, does anyone know what this has to do with the Second Relocation Initiative?"

To nobody's surprise, to Mikoto's immediate right Kushina's hand shoots up in the air.

Biwako-sensei's face is like a stone, but her pleasure that Kushina is the first to respond still shines through. They all know that Kushina is her favorite, and all the rest of the recently graduated genin could not be more relieved that it is not them. "Yes, Kushina?" she inquires.

Kushina says promptly, "As a result of the increased trade and improved relations between Konoha and civilian villages, more shinobi intermingled with civilians, creating bonds of friendship and marriage. More civilians began moving into the village proper than ever before. The Second Relocation Initiative was inspired by the Nidaime's decision a few years before to relocate the Uchiha to another part of the village, but it was a greater, more comprehensive restructuring of the village to enhance the safety of the civilians."

"Very good, Kushina," Biwako-sensei praises her. Kushina practically glows with pride. Five months ago, when the seven Academy graduates were finally presented their hitai-ate and they started their supplementary lessons with (essentially) whatever jounin-sensei happened to be available at the time, Mikoto wouldn't have expected Kushina to bond with Biwako-sensei, of all people. However, Kushina turns out to have a good head for politics and economy, though perhaps not the temperament and to everyone's surprise has become Biwako-sensei's darling.

"How did she know that?" Inoichi mumbles to Shikaku. "I've lived here my whole life and my mom is a civilian and I didn't know that."

Shikaku says wryly, "You're still a clan brat though, Inoichi. Your mother might be a civilian, but _you__'re _still the Yamanaka heir. Why would it ever come up?"

Mikoto sighs in conjunction with Chouza when Inoichi puffs up like a bird ruffling its feathers. "Well, _excuse me-_" Inoichi starts.

"We're practically all clan brats here," Mikoto cuts in, hoping to avoid _another _wasted class because Shikaku pissed Inoichi off again. "I mean, look at us. We've got representatives from this generation of Yamanaka, Nara, Akimichi, Aburame, Hyuga, _and _Uchiha. There's no reason to be offended because he called you a clan brat, Inoichi." Shikuro and Hizashi incline their heads in acknowledgement. "You should apologize to Kushina, though."

"Huh?" Kushina blurts out, visibly startled.

Outraged, Inoichi jumps to his feet at his desk to tower over Mikoto. "What did you say, Uchiha?"

Mikoto immediately stands up too, even though he's a good few inches taller than her and she has to glare up at him. She refuses to be intimidated or back down when he tries to use those extra inches to loom over her. "I _said _you should apologize to Kushina. She's been working really hard to study Konoha's history, which _you _can take for granted because your family was part of it. Our parents pass down their knowledge to us, but Kushina's got to _study _it."

"So?" Inoichi demands. His face is way too close to hers.

Mikoto is about two millimeters away from making him back off with a kunai to the face. "Think about it, Inoichi," she snaps, "your dad's probably been telling you the same boring old stories about the founding of Konoha since you were born, right? Kushina didn't have that. I'm not dissing you or your mom, Inoichi, but it's not fair for you to dismiss Kushina's hard work - she knows it because she can't just learn one family's history, she's got to study _all _of it."

Oddly, that seems to get through to him. He stops trying to loom over her and looks sort of thoughtful. "Oh." Inoichi glances over at Kushina, who looks completely bewildered by what is happening, and then scowls to hide his embarrassment. "Sorry, Uzumaki."

"Um," Kushina says, staring wide-eyed at him, her eyes flicking from Mikoto to Biwako-sensei, "Yeah, okay."

"Sit down, Yamanaka," Biwako-sensei says.

He sits. So does Mikoto.

Biwako-sensei raises her chin imperiously, obviously unimpressed with the interruption to her class. "For your information, Kushina has been studying Konoha's history with me for the last month. She's got a good head for history and policy and, as the Uchiha has said, a clear-sighted and comprehensive approach to learning ours. I believe that her lack of clan affiliation has been a great asset to her as well."

Mikoto is _sure _that Biwako-sensei is eyeing her in particular, but if the older woman's not going to say anything, Mikoto sure isn't. Beside her, Kushina has gone bright red.

"If everyone is quite finished," Biwako-sensei says patronizingly, "Perhaps someone can tell me what the main goals of restructuring were. Nara?"

Shikaku sighs. "Safety of the civilians, like Kushina said, but it also had the added effect of protecting the village from possible security leaks and appeased the increasingly antsy shinobi clans of Konoha, who felt threatened by the presence of civilians they saw as strangers and outsiders."

"Good," Biwako-sensei nods. "Who were the major detractors of the intiative?"

Shikuro's voice is like soft sandpaper ground absently together. "The Sandaime had to defend his initiative to the clans, the council and the rich, landowning civilians. Some clans were unhappy to have their lands reallocated, especially the Uchiha who were unhappy about relocating _again. _The Council saw it as wasteful of time and energy and money. The rich civilians had similar issues to the clans, being unhappy about the reallocation of the land that they owned."

Kushina makes a small noise but when Mikoto looks over at her, she is listening with rapt attention.

"Good," Biwako-sensei says again. Her laser-sharp focus passes over Mikoto, whose heart skips a beat, and lands on Chouza. "Which major clans had no particular concerns about the relocation?"

"Yamanaka, Aburame and Akimichi," Chouza says dutifully, "The Inuzuka clan initially raised complaints, but were appeased when the Sandaime capitulated and agreed to rescind previous restrictions on where they could bring their dogs, within reason."

"And which clans were unhappy and why?" Biwako-sensei asks, raising her eyebrows at them.

There's a tense moment of silence.

"Nara," Shikaku says, rolling his eyes. "Apparently my clan raised quite a fuss about the Nara forest and the deer."

"Shikuro already pointed out that the Uchiha weren't happy about being moved again," Mikoto grumbles reluctantly. Apparently they're owning up to their clans' stupid shit. She feels a flash of annoyance that Fugaku doesn't have to attend these lessons. He's getting some sort of extra special training about how to be clan head when he comes of age and is excused from these supplementary lessons. Kagami-ojiisama, as current Head of the Police Force is one of his tutors, which her grandfather is cautiously neutral about when he speaks of it.

There's a moment where all of them wait to see if she will bring up Setsuna Uchiha's attempt at a coup, and Mikoto stoutly refuses to.

Then, all of the so-called 'clan brats' turn expectantly to Hizashi.

Hizashi's expression when faced with their attention is calm and, frankly, bored. His hitai-ate is securely securely over his forehead, the same way he used to fasten a dark headband. "The Hyuuga flat out refused to move or change the Hyuuga complex," he says, crossing his arms over his chest and staring back at them coolly. "The civilian civil engineers tasked with the reconstruction were forced to plan around the existing Hyuuga complex."

Mikoto feels a sudden sense of sympathy. He's being forced to speak for the clan the same way she had been because Hiashi, like Fugaku, is excused from the supplementary classes on account of his super special Hyuuga clan head training. She wonders if he feels the same sort of frustration she feels, having to bear the burden of representing her clan. They'd never been particularly close, but the two of them were friendly acquaintances who had played together occasionally as kids.

"Hm," Biwako-sensei says. "Good. Now since we've gone over the basics of the Initiative, we should discuss the ramifications of having an increasing number of civilians in a shinobi village..." She moves the discussion away from the clans and instead begins a lecture about the logistics of the internal policies that was instated to help maintain the safety and security of the village.

Mikoto very slowly releases a sigh of relief. She glances at the clock, and tries not to groan. Over half an hour left until Biwako-sensei's class is over and she can go train. Sparring is _so _much easier than this.


	9. Chapter 9

this is sort of just the second half of the last chapter, so more kushina and mikoto starting to define the paths they are going to follow. a lot of training talk and more insight into my version of the uchiha. kagami is my favorite old man character so far, can you tell?

also, i'm not gonna lie, i've been writing some pretty adult-like early teens. some of that is informed by the canon, cos holy crap they make some adult choices early on in their lives. the other part of this is that while i don't really remember that part of my life, i refuse to believe that kids at any age lack the capacity to be thoughtful, sensitive individuals. ngl, kids can be utter brats, but they can be pretty great too.

* * *

><p>Later, after Biwako-sensei's class is over, the genin break away from each other. There are no other supplementary lessons scheduled for the rest of the day. Most of them are supposed to be going back to their clan stead to be trained in their particular family styles, but Mikoto suspects from the way Inoichi has started to sputter as Chouza and Shikaku head off in the direction of the civilian market centers that not everyone has the same idea.<p>

Kushina, as usual, follows Mikoto to the Police Force headquarters, where they will train and spar with Kotaro and the Police Department chuunin trainees. With the shortage of jounin-sensei free to take on a proper three-member genin team, clans have been forced to take more responsibility for the training of the most recent children who managed to make genin. Kagami-ojiisama agreed to take Mikoto and Kushina under his wing (and therefore under the wing of the entire Police Force) since Kushina had no clan in Konoha.

("Only temporarily though, Hiruzen," Kagami-ojiisama had said, waggling his finger playfully at the _Hokage_. Mikoto wanted to die of embarrassment. The Sandaime only looked amused though. "I'm willing to take up the slack while you're sorting the village out, old friend, but only because I'm expecting you to get these kids some proper teachers soon enough. I'm a busy man, you know.")

The trainees are generally happy to help them train because it means that they don't have to train with Kotaro, who is somewhat renowned even outside the force as a relentless task master.

Mikoto and Kushina have been focusing mostly on taijutsu, on Kagami-ojiisama's advice. Mikoto has no Sharingan, she's not from the main family, and her chakra reserves are something like_ utterly abysmal_, so Kagami-ojiisama had decided that instead of teaching her the Katon techniques favored by their family, he would have her build up her stamina and improve her chakra control by walking up trees and walking across water.

Having her work on these with Kushina works out because Kushina has the slightly opposite problem of having an incredible amount of chakra and terrible control. Her stamina isn't great either, but, according to Kagami-ojiisama and Kotaro, apparently they are both stubborn enough to make up for it and already their stamina is improving by leaps and bounds.

It has been going astonishingly well. Kotaro's favorite thing to do whenever Kushina (and, occasionally, Mikoto; even though she doesn't have Kushina's pure strength, Mikoto's wily) wins in an only-taijutsu match with one of the chuunin trainees is to crow gleefully, "You think you're tough? When you can win in a fair fight with this twelve year old girl, you can call yourself tough! Back to the basics, people! Forty laps around the village! If my twelve year old cousin and her friend beat you back here again, you have to do_ forty more_!"

Mikoto always has to bite her lip to keep from laughing when the trainees groan, because Ayame's maternity leave is almost over. When she takes her place at Kotaro's side, even part time, as the main instructor for the Police Force trainees, they will learn why Kotaro is well known, but Ayame's name is only spoken of by past trainees in an undertone, if at all. Everyone with sense knows that Ayame is the one to be scared of.

When Mikoto is not training with Kushina, her mother takes her out to learn and practice kenjutsu, or Hotaru (who has finally managed to become an Academy teacher) helps her practice her genjutsu and ninjutsu as much as her chakra reserves will allow.

"All in all," Kagami-ojiisama likes to say, sounding quite pleased with himself, "I think I'm doing quite well at turning a Constant Menace and a Red-haired Menace into a decent pair of shinobi."

Mikoto hadn't known for sure what _Kushina_ had been doing while she was with Mother or Hotaru. She has suspected for a while though, and Biwako-sensei had only confirmed it for her today.

Kushina keeps rustling some coins in her pocket, a nervous habit that makes Mikoto raise her eyebrows.

A few blocks from the school, she finally brings it up. "What is it, Kushina?"

The metal clinking stops conspicuously. "Nothing," Kushina says, her voice pitched a few notes too high.

Trying not to be amused, but mostly failing, Mikoto says casually, "This has nothing to do with the fact that you've been training with the Hokage all this time, is it?"

Kushina freezes mid-step. "I'm not training with the Hokage! I'm- Biwako-sensei, she's-"

Mikoto turns to her friend with the saddest, most disappointed look she can manage without laughing. "Secrets are supposed to be shared with your best friend, Kushina."

Kushina sputters helplessly, "I- but- I _promised_." Then her eyes narrow. "Wait. You _know_."

Mikoto shrugs, smiling. "Kagami-ojiisama dropped a couple hints," she admits. "He said that of all the people in the village, the only one who had spent any significant amount of time learning Whirlpool's art of the sealing technique was the Sandaime. And then he refused to say anything more."

"Oh," Kushina says.

"But," Mikoto adds severely, putting her hands on her hips and looking at Kushina very sternly, "he did _not_ tell me that he and Biwako-sensei were grooming you to be a candidate for Hokage!"

"They're not!" Kushina yelps. She's blushing and twisting her fingers together. "The Sandaime remembered that I used to challenge Minato to prove his worth as the next Hokage a-and Biwako-sensei heard it and decided that it was about time that there was a female Hokage and then she decided that she was going to tutor me personally about these things to help me."

Mikoto turns this over in her head with growing excitement. "That's amazing," she says emphatically, feeling giddy. "Kagami-ojiisama says that Biwako-sensei has been one of the Sandaime's advisers from the beginning of his time as Hokage. Maybe our next Hokage really will be a woman!" She beams at Kushina, expecting her friend to burst out with one of her loud exclamations about her imminent success.

Instead, Kushina says hopefully, "You really think so?"

That gives Mikoto pause. "Yeah, of course," she says, surprised. "Do you... not want to be Hokage anymore?"

"No, I'm going to be the best Hokage in the whole wide world!" Kushina suddenly exclaims, brandishing her fist at an innocent, and very startled, passerby who hurries away. Then she hesitates again, looking at Mikoto. "I mean... what about you, Mikoto? Don't you want to be Hokage too?"

Mikoto's mouth is hanging open. She closes it, and manages to say, "What?"

"It's just," Kushina says, fidgeting, "I think you'd make a good Hokage too, Mikoto. You've always supported me, but you could do it too."

"But I don't want to be Hokage," Mikoto says, blinking furiously. What is happening?

"You should though," Kushina insists, looking at her earnestly. "You're smart, you're good at talking people down - today, if I were you, I would have punched Inoichi in the face as soon as he talked back to me. You even got him to _apologize_ to me. You'd be a better rival than Minato. He's never even around anymore! What kind of Hokage is never even in the village?"

"Thank you? B-but," Mikoto stammers out, her thoughts racing in confusion, "I don't want to be Hokage! I don't want to be your rival! What do you-" A horrible thought occurs to her and Mikoto blurts out, "Do you not want to be my friend anymore?" That would be _awful_.

To her relief, Kushina's horrified expression seems to say the same thing. "No! But I don't want you to _not_ want to be Hokage because we're friends either! Biwako-sensei is giving me lessons on things a Hokage needs to know, but you should be taking the lessons with me!"

"But-" Mikoto tries to say again, but Kushina keeps talking over her, clearly upset.

"That's the least I could do! You've always trained with me and Old Man Kagami's always been so good to me, and I have just felt so guilty this whole time!" Kushina covers her face, but not before Mikoto sees the tears in her eyes. "Please don't hate me, Mikoto. It just felt so good that Biwako-sensei wanted to teach me and thought I had potential. I'm a horrible, selfish friend, and if you want to come with me to my lessons with Biwako-sensei, you should. Just don't hate me."

Mikoto's mouth has fallen open again, but she doesn't notice.

She has honestly never wanted to be Hokage. Her dreams are small but meaningful to her. She wants to be the kind of shinobi with honor and dignity that her grandfather and her mother and her father can be proud of, even if her father won't see it. She wants to be strong enough to protect her village, her family and her friends.

Not as Hokage, though. To be honest, Mikoto would be happy just making it to chuunin. She just wants to be able to stand by Kushina's side proudly as a shinobi of Konoha.

It is nice to know that Kushina thinks she would make a good Hokage though. It is quite a surprise to find out that Kushina thought she might be squashing down her own ambitions for the sake of their friendship, but she supposes that sometimes it is easy to think everyone has the same hopes and desires as yourself.

Mikoto rubs the back of her head, sort of embarrassed by this whole situation. Then she reaches out and wraps her arms around Kushina's shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. Kushina is actually taller than her, so it is a bit cramped, but Kushina huddles down enough so Mikoto can tuck her friend under her chin.

"Kushina," Mikoto says firmly into bright red hair, "Thank you for the offer, but I swear to you, on pain of death, that I absolutely do not want to be Hokage. You were absolutely right to take those lessons with Biwako-sensei for yourself and on your own. I'm flattered, although also surprised that this is why you kept the lessons a secret, but I would rather be forced to do water walking in the middle of the ocean during a typhoon than take extra lessons with Biwako-sensei about village policy."

Kushina doesn't say anything at first, seeming to mull this over. "That's very dangerous," she says finally.

"Yes," Mikoto says.

"You would probably drown. You're not very good at water walking yet," Kushina points out slowly.

"No, I'm not," Mikoto confirms, and waits for it to sink it.

Kushina lets out a long breath, and her shoulders sag beneath Mikoto's arms. "So I've been feeling guilty and terrible for all this time for no reason?"

Mikoto shrugs wordlessly.

Kushina falls silent again. Then she straightens up, arms coming up, and Mikoto lets her arms fall back down to her sides so that Kushina can embrace her. "You're a great friend," Kushina mutters into her shoulder, "And I'm still a pretty terrible one, but I'm going to do better, I promise."

"It's alright," Mikoto says. "When we were three years old, Minato and I accidentally locked Inoichi with us in a closet. It turned out that Inoichi had a fear of the dark, so he's never quite forgiven us for it, but we're still friends." She winces, thinking back to class earlier. "Well, we're not enemies at any rate. Anyway, if Inoichi can get over that, this is nothing. At least your heart was in the right place."

Kushina lets her go, a dubious look on her face. "Mikoto, that's not a very good story."

"I know," Mikoto admits. "I don't know why I even thought of it. I haven't even thought about it in years. I still feel bad about it - we were in there so long that me and Minato fell asleep and Inoichi panicked because he thought we were dead."

"How did you even end up in the closet?" Kushina asks, confused. "It sounds like something that would happen to me, but none of you like pranks and you and Minato would never be that bad at it."

"Well," Mikoto starts, and then stops. Kushina is her best friend, but there are some lines that she can't cross. She grimaces a little and then says, "I'm sorry Kushina, what happens in ninja daycare stays in ninja daycare. We all agreed."

There is a sudden jealous longing in Kushina's eyes that startles Mikoto. "Oh," Kushina says quietly.

Mikoto says, "Kushina-"

"Anyway, we need to go!" Kushina interrupts abruptly. She punches her fist in the air energetically. "Let's do this! I've got to train harder if I want to be Hokage one day!" She marches off, Mikoto trailing helplessly behind her.

Mikoto forgets sometimes that Kushina wasn't always here in Konoha. That she missed six years of petty squabbles during playdates and she lacks at least two generations of shinobi parents gossiping and teasing and fighting with each other. Mikoto doesn't _mean_ to rub that history in Kushina's face, Mikoto just... forgets.

"Kushina," Mikoto says quietly, "You don't have to pretend that I didn't do something hurtful by excluding you from something."

In front of Mikoto, Kushina stops, but doesn't turn around. "I'm not, Mikoto. Don't worry." She turns her face to show Mikoto a smile. "It's just the past. You can't change the past, but it doesn't matter since we're going to shape the future together, right?"

Mikoto nods slowly, a smile spreading unbidden across her face. Kushina is sometimes _very_ good with words. "Yeah," Mikoto says.

Kushina grins at her mischievously. "Last one there has to spar with Kotaro first!" she shouts, and takes off.

"Not fair!" Mikoto yelps and runs after Kushina, even knowing she won't be able to catch up.

She knows that Kushina will be waiting when she gets there.


	10. Chapter 10

Nowadays, Obito is not very difficult to babysit. He is almost six months old now.

When it is Mikoto's turn to watch him so that Ayame can get some peaceful rest, she likes to grab his go-bag, sling it over one shoulder, strap him to her chest and take him on a stroll around the areas nearby the Uchiha complex so she can tell him all about the Konoha that she loves. Kushina sometimes joins her on these walks, but mostly she doesn't because she is oddly uncomfortable with babies.

"They're just so small," Kushina had tried to explain, "And fragile. And your cousin would murder me in a horrible way if I hurt him." Mikoto supposes all of these points are true enough, though it doesn't explain why Kushina seems to think that any of those things would happen just by being _around_ baby Obito.

It is on one of these walks that Mikoto sees a very big man with wild white hair accompanied by a young blond boy about her age who looks very familiar...

Mikoto gasps when she recognizes him. "Minato!" she exclaims, a little too loudly. Obito, who had been napping in her arms, stirs and makes some smacking noises of discontent.

Minato turns, and startles when he sees her. "Um," he says, "Mikoto! You... have a baby?"

Mikoto remembers suddenly that despite the fact that Minato is sort of a genius, he is also kind of an idiot sometimes. It is kind of nice to see that despite the years that Minato has been gone, he hasn't really changed that much.

"I'm going to ignore that," she tells him graciously, and shifts Obito's weight so that she can give Minato a stilted one-armed hug. "I missed you, Minato!"

He looks very uncomfortable when she lets go, still looking curiously at the baby, but he looks happy to see her. "I've missed you too," Minato says cheerfully. "It feels like forever since I was back in Konoha. It's good to be home!"

"Ho ho!" the big man chortles, "Minato, you dog!"

Mikoto watches, fascinated, as Minato's face goes through a complicated series of expressions, starting with annoyance, exasperation, embarrassment, all with an underlying resignation, before he snaps - snaps! - at the older man in warning, "Sensei!"

Eyes wide, Mikoto looks up at the big man, wondering what kind of sensei he must be to make her composed, calm friend lose his temper so quickly.

Minato's sensei shrugs, a wide, gleeful grin across his face. "What do expect from me, kid? It's not everyday that your favorite student gets greeted so warmly by a pretty girl. With a baby, no less!" He leers.

"Jiraiya-sensei, _please_," Minato pleads, "Mikoto's my _friend_."

_Jiraiya_. As in _one of the Sannin_. Mikoto stares up at the man of legends, and thinks, not for the first time, that maybe all men are just fundamentally defective somehow.

"We're _twelve_," Mikoto says, exasperated. "This is my nephew." To Minato, she adds, "Uncle Kotaro and Auntie Ayame had a baby! His name is Obito."

Minato's eyes light up. "Wow! I really havebeen gone a long time - last I heard, Ayame had just proposed!"

Mikoto remembers that. It had been quite the event: Ayame had gotten the whole family and even some of the trainees in on it. Together, they had transformed the Police Force HQ into a bona fide paradise of flowers and butterflies. When a gobsmacked Kotaro wandered into work, she got on one knee and informed him that she wanted spend her life with him and even though life with an Uchiha was never going to be easy, she was willing to be his partner in terrorizing future generations of Konoha policemen as long as he was willing to be an Uchiha with her. Everyone had been very moved, though some of the trainees had looked mildly ill.

"Almost three years!" Mikoto agrees. Saying the number out loud makes Mikoto feel weird. Has it really been that long? It seems to have flown by. To distract herself, she punches Minato in the shoulder. Lightly though, so she doesn't jostle Obito too much; she is sure he will get his fair share from Kushina later. "You didn't even send a letter or anything! For all we knew, you could've been dead all this time!"

"Hey," Jiraiya says, offended. "What kind of teacher would I be if I let my student die? Scratch that, what kind of shinobi would I be if he died under my watch? I'm one of the Sannin, you know!"

"_Ow_," Minato complains, ignoring him, "That hurt, Mikoto! I guess you've been working hard all this time too! I'm really sorry, it just slipped my mind. I was a little busy."

"Training with me," Jiraiya says pointedly, "One of the Sannin. We're well-known, you know. Respected."

"It's okay, I guess," Mikoto says, ignoring him too. "Have you seen the others yet?"

"No, we just got in," Minato says sheepishly. "I was hoping to go home for a bit first..."

Mikoto very carefully does not let her face express any of the sudden horror she feels at the idea of Minato going back to his studio apartment after _three years, _but he must sense it in her silence because he quickly rushes to reassure her.

"Jiraiya-sensei set me up with a good housekeeping service to take care of it while I was gone," he tells her. "I'm sure they did a really good job with it!"

"Alright," Mikoto says dubiously. "Well, Kushina and I have a class with the other genin with Satoshi-sensei later today, but it's ramen day so we'll be at Ichiraku if you want to join us after."

"Oh, Kushina," Minato says uncomfortably. "Um, how is she?" His eyes dart around the road, and Mikoto can see him tensing in preparation as if he expects her to jump out at him at any moment.

Amused, Mikoto says, "Good."

"Good, good," Minato replies absently, still on high alert. "I'll - you know, I've got a lot of things to, um, you know, with the three years gone, but maybe." He's backing away already, hands rising before him in an appeasing gesture (or a warding off pose).

"Not?" Mikoto fills in wryly.

He laughs nervously as he starts to hurry down the road. "It was nice to see you again, Mikoto! I'll come by again, say hi to your mom and Kagami-ojiisama. Another day though, sorry!"

Obito shifts restlessly in her arms, and then only sighs when Mikoto bounces him a little. It is about time to head back to her house anyway. "See you, Minato!" she says agreeably. Her mom will be happy to see Minato again.

To her surprise, Jiraiya is only watching his student make his escape, looking deeply entertained, not bothering to follow after him. Then he turns to Mikoto, an unholy glee in his eyes.

"Who's _Kushina_?" Jiraiya asks, sounding absolutely delighted. "That kid faced down literal _demons _without flinching, but one mention of your friend's name and he goes running? I've got to see this. You said Satoshi, yeah? Yuzure Satoshi? From T&I?"

Mikoto replies suspiciously, "Why?"

"I have to talk to him anyway," Jiraiya says cheerfully, "So I might drop by your class later... See this 'Kushina' for myself..." He cackles quietly to himself.

Mikoto rolls her eyes up to the skies. She can't believe _this _is the man who is Minato's teacher. And he is one of the legendary Sannin?

Exasperated and shaking her head, Mikoto just walks off without bothering with the proper greetings.

"Hey!" he protests, following her, "Hey, wait! I'm going your way! I haven't seen Old Man Kagami in way too long. It's about time I paid my courtesies to him."

"You know my grandfather?" Mikoto inquiries, tilting her face up at him as he falls into step with her.

Jiraiya looks down at her, eyebrows raised. "He's an old friend. Well, my sensei's old friend. Same difference. He's your grandfather? You've got some good genes there huh, little girl." He eyes Obito and says, "Who woulda thought, the Sword of Konoha is now a great-grandfather. Geez, you don't get that many of those in a ninja village. I should congratulate him on _officially _becoming a REALLY old man. "

Mikoto can't help rolling her eyes again. Obito babbles incoherently, backing her up. "Don't call me little girl," she says. "I have a name."

"Mikoto, right?" Jiraiya says. He laughs when she looks up at him again in surprise. "Don't be so surprised. Minato _just _said it."

Mikoto eyes his white hair. "I was just surprised that such an old man could remember so far back," she says blithely.

"What!" Jiraiya yelps, freezing dramatically with a foot still up in the air. "I'm not old! I'm - ahem, I'm still young!" He points his finger accusingly at Mikoto. "It's not nice to make fun of a person's hair."

Mikoto smiles beatifically at him, and walks off ahead of him.

"Oh, man," Jiraiya mumbles to himself as he catches up with her. "You're _mean _for a little kid."

They don't really talk after that. She lets him into the Uchiha complex and leads him over to her house, ignoring him as he looks around curiously.

"Mother?" she calls out, "I'm home. I've brought a guest who's here to see Kagami-ojiisama too."

The sliding door of the tatami room clatters open and Kagami-ojiisama sticks his head out curiously. "Oh, it's you," he says when he sees Jiraiya. "I thought it'd be someone more exciting."

"This whole family is mean to me," Jiraiya complains.

Kagami-ojiisama raises an eyebrow at Mikoto, amused. "Well done," he praises her. A giggle bubbles out of Mikoto's chest as she takes her shoes off. Infected by her good humor, Obito giggles happily as she makes her way to the kitchen, where her mother is sharpening some knives.

She starts putting the knives away when she sees Mikoto and Obito. "Was that Jiraiya I heard come in?" Uchiha, formerly Shimura, Yuriko asks.

"Yes, Mother," Mikoto says, unstrapping Obito from her chest after all the knives are put away properly and handing the baby over to her mother. She puts the go-bag down by the sink.

Yuriko coos at Obito, making him babble happily. Aside from his own mother, Yuriko is the one person Obito is always happiest to see.

"I saw Minato today," she tells her mother.

"Oh, he's back?" Yuriko asks her, even though Obito commands all of her attention. He giggles when she bounces him and tickles his belly.

"I guess so," Mikoto says with a shrug. "He came back with Jiraiya. Apparently Jiraiya was training with him."

"Mikoto," Yuriko says disapprovingly, finally looking up from Obito. "Show some respect! Jiraiya-_san_, at least."

Mikoto wrinkles her nose. "He's a pervert!"

Yuriko snorts. "I guess some things never change. I would have thought Tsunade would have sorted him out already." She bounces Obito absentmindedly in her arms thoughtfully. "I suppose we won't ever see something like that again here in the village with Tsunade gone." She looks sad.

Wanting to cheer her mother up, Mikoto asks, "Where's Ayame?"

Unexpectedly, this makes Yuriko roll her eyes in irritation. "She's gone to bring Saki-chan and the baby here. She's been gone for a while, but she and Saki probably just got caught up talking baby fashion or something again."

Ah. Saki is a civilian who just turned twenty. She is also the _much _younger wife of Sakumo, her mother's former teammate and Kagami-ojiisama's former student. Mikoto's mother greatly disapproves, even though she's quite fond of Saki herself. Or because she is quite fond of Saki, Mikoto is not entirely sure.

"He's on another mission?"

Yuriko rolls her eyes. "Of course," she huffs indignantly, "He didn't have enough sense not to drag such a sweet young girl into the line of fire, but at least he's smart enough to leave her with us while he's not around to protect them from his, let me remind you, _many _enemies."

"Now, now," Kagami-ojiisama says mildly from the doorway, Jiraiya following him in. "A heart wants what it wants. I was certainly surprised when you told me that you were marrying my son all those years ago. And look at us now!" He pinches one of Mikoto's cheeks playfully and bops her nose with a grin when she makes a face at him.

Mikoto's mother smiles. "You're the one who set us up, sensei," she points out.

"I wasn't expecting it to _work_," Kagami-ojiisama says mournfully. "My cute student, marrying my silly oaf of a son..."

Jiraiya chuckles. "Ryuunosuke was a good man," he says ruefully. "Good shinobi. Sensible too. He was always telling me that peeping was going to be the death of me, but when Tsunade nearly killed me that one time, he was nice enough not to say 'I told you so.'"

Mikoto is quiet, torn between missing her father and wanting to hear more about their memories of him. Even if it has to do with peeping.

Kagami-ojiisama breaks the nostalgic air when he says, "My god, you people sound old."

Yuriko lets out a surprised laugh and reaches out to hit him just as the front door rings.

"Yuriko-san?" Saki's voice calls out. "Are you here?"

"Come in, Saki-chan," Yuriko calls. "We're in the kitchen."

Saki comes in, holding a tiny bundle of blankets in her arms. She smiles and bows politely to Kagami-ojiisama. "Hello, sir," she says, her eyes shining and her cheeks rosy pink. Saki always looks so beautiful and composed and put together. Mikoto secretly thinks that Saki must be a princess in hiding or something. She looks like something that stepped out of a fairytale. "I'm so sorry to impose on you all again. I'm truly grateful. I know you already have a baby to take care of, but I promise Kakashi will be good. He's a really quiet baby."

"Kakashi, huh?" Jiraiya says. "Not a bad name. Then again, I'm not sure there's anything that can top 'Orochimaru' in the rankings of _most terrible things to name your children ever._"

Saki blinks at him. "Hello?" she offers, too polite to ask him outright who he is and what he is doing here. "My name is Hatake Saki. I'm not sure I've met you before."

Jiraiya's eyebrows shoot into the sky and he whistles. "Hatake, eh? Sakumo's got good taste. I'm Jiraiya."

Saki purses her lips, furious red blooming in her cheeks. Mikoto shakes her head with a sigh. Jiraiya has the social grace of a fish out of water. Why would you ever greet a stranger like that? Let alone your friend's wife, regardless of how young or beautiful she was. Mikoto feels a rush of sympathy for Minato, who has always been scrupulously considerate. Spending years alone with someone like Jiraiya must have really worn on him.

"Jiraiya," Yuriko says reproachfully.

He rubs his head, looking honestly apologetic. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it."

Saki smiles unconvincingly and says, "It's fine."

Yuriko passes Obito back to Mikoto and gets a bottle of milk from their fridge. Obito mewls with displeasure at the transfer, but giggles again when Mikoto gently blows bubbles on his cheeks. "Where's Ayame?" Yuriko asks curiously, as she hands the bottle over to Mikoto who begins to feed Obito.

"Ayame?" Saki echoes in surprise, "I didn't see her when I came in."

Yuriko freezes, and, alarmed, Mikoto watches as she and Kagami-ojiisama exchange a loaded look.

"I sent her over to your place to help you with your things," Yuriko says slowly.

"Oh, that's very thoughtful of you," Saki says with a smile. "I actually wanted to pick up some things from the market so I could cook tonight, so I hired a temporary genin team to carry my bags. They left everything in the foyer, but if someone could watch Kakashi for just a moment, I can bring it all in myself."

"No, Saki-chan, stay here," Yuriko says lowly. "Mikoto-"

Mikoto nods, already understanding the seriousness of the situation. Even if there was no one at the Hatake household, Ayame would have gone to look for Saki anyway and come back with her. She tucks Obito securely in one arm and picks up the go-bag again with the other. She nods at Saki to follow her, and shoos Jiraiya out of the way so she can pop open the trap door in the floor of the kitchen. The door opens up to stairs leading down to a secret room.

Saki-san clutches Kakashi, her face abruptly going pale, but she is a civilian of the Hidden Village of the Leaf. She knows the emergency procedures as well as the next shinobi. She stays quiet and doesn't ask any questions.

Mikoto goes down first, flicking the lights on. There is a couch there that she ushers Saki and Kakashi towards and then she places the go-bag next to Saki's feet. She hesitates, wondering if she should hand Obito to Saki as well.

Worried about her own mobility in the event that something does happen, she decides that might be better and after some urging, Saki takes Obito in her arms as well. Kakashi eyes Obito suspiciously, but Obito doesn't react to the other baby, only looks confusedly up at Mikoto.

She moves swiftly but silently back up the stairs to close the trap door. Before she does, she sees that her mother has pulled the knives back out to sharpen and Jiraiya and Kagami-ojiisama are nowhere to be seen. Yuriko doesn't react at all to her presence, but she does flick her eyes over at Mikoto in acknowledgement.

Mikoto nods and carefully shuts the trap door. She grabs the matches and lights a few candles for low level visibility before turning off the lights completely. Enemy ninja could potentially hear the hum of electricity down in the secret room. Then she goes down the stairs and around to light the rest of the candles in the small room. Then she makes sure that Saki is comfortable and that Obito is behaving himself.

She meets Saki's frightened eyes. _Don't worry_, she mouths to Saki, not even sure if the woman can read lips, _I'll protect you_.

Saki smiles shakily and nods, so maybe she does understand.

Mikoto smiles tightly and turns to put herself between Saki and the door. She readies herself with her hands on the sheathed short sword at her side, and settles in for a long wait.


	11. Chapter 11

intermission time! you might be thinking, "what? is this really the time for that?" i got stuck trying to write the attack and ended up using an entirely different pov to fill in some gaps. this comes first because it is the first thing that happens in the attack, even though technically in the overall story we're backtracking a little. it's over 7000 words (which is twice as long as the longest chapter so far!) because it gives uchiha ayame a backstory. there's a lot of information and set up in here, but you're really impatient i guess you could skip to the last section to read about what happened to ayame in the last chapter. we'll return to mikoto's pov in the next chapter, which will be posted on friday.

emphatic warning for violence and death.

* * *

><p><strong>intermission: look to the sky<strong>

The first thing Yuuhi Kotaro thinks when he first met Uchiha Ayame at the Academy is, 'Why does she have to look so mean all the time?' He is trying to be _friendly. _It is really not nice of her to just keep frowning at him as if she is not sure why he is talking to her.

On the other hand, Ayame doesn't notice him until much, much later. He didn't really make an impression, and before long she has other things on her mind. When she is nine, she loses most of her immediate family when they defend Konoha from her own clan head and his dreams of usurping the Hokage.

So, you will have to forgive her if she was a little preoccupied.

(Incidentally, her first thought when his presence finally registered was, 'Who the hell is this kid?')

(Kotaro wants you to know that he is actually four months older than Ayame, and Ayame _wishes_ she had his youthful good looks.)

(Ayame would like to add, for the record, ha. ha. ha.)

::*::

This is how Ayame meets Kotaro.

It is after school and she is walking home on her own. Auntie Yuriko or Uncle Ryuunosuke usually 'just happen' to be in the area to walk back to the Uchiha complex with her. Unfortunately, Yuriko has a doctor's appointment today, and since the heir was born last week, Ryuunosuke has to attend to the main family with Kagami-ojiisama and young Masato, their son and her cousin.

The entire Uchiha clan has been aflutter since Fugaku's birth. It is like everyone thinks that if they stay busy enough, if they pretend hard enough, everything will be normal and Manae-sama's son won't also be the son of a traitor.

Ayame feels the normal stab of disdain for them all. They all seem so petty and horrible, trying to ignore that less than half a year ago their clan split into two and decimated each other.

Maybe they all should have died. Maybe it would have been better that way. Ayame doesn't want to die, but she wishes she didn't feel so _angry_ and sad and unhappy all the time. She hates the traitors in her clan who turned against Konoha, and she hates her parents for standing up against them and getting themselves killed. She hates the people of Konoha for how they look suspiciously at her clan (and by extension, her) when her mother and father died to protect them. She hates herself for for hating Konoha and she hates herself for hating her own family.

She is tired of feeling so hateful all the time.

Lost in her thoughts and unknowingly glaring down at the ground, she doesn't notice the two boys from the Academy following her until the first rock nails her in the back of the head. She turns around to face them.

"Murderer!" one boy screams. Ayame recognizes him vaguely - she is pretty sure he is not in her class though. He might be a Nohara. She isn't sure.

She can't bring herself to move when the other boy - possibly a Yamanaka, though again she is not sure - shouts, "Your stupid family killed my brother, traitor!"

The next one nails her in the forehead. Ayame staggers back, thinking, _they killed my parents_. They were killed by her own family for their loyalty to their village. Ayame still has nightmares about how smoothly Setsuna's sword pierced through her father's heart.

Ayame's hands are shaking. She doesn't realize it, but when she looks up at the two boys, her eyes are red with one spinning tomoe.

The Yamanaka boy screams with fury and she sees the third rock hit her solidly in the shoulder, and does nothing to stop it. It knocks her already shaky balance completely off track and she stumbles and falls backwards. The impact of the ground against the back of her head makes her see stars.

Someone grabs the front of her shirt hard and drags her upper body upwards. She doesn't even get to see who it is before the first punch lands and she is seeing stars again.

Dimly, she registers someone kicking her in the ribs too. Someone is sobbing. Maybe it is her. Maybe not.

It hurts though. A lot.

Beneath the pain, Ayame feels an odd, disconnected sense of relief. For the first time since the coup, she is not so angry. So hateful.

This is what she has been waiting for all these months.

She deserves this.

A new voice gasps, "What are you doing!"

The hand holding her up lets go, letting her drop heavily back to the ground. She bangs her head again. It barely even registers, the rest of her body aching way too much.

She registers the sound of a scuffle, and hopes vacantly that she doesn't get stepped on.

Then one of the boys who attacked her shouts, "You'll pay for this, Yuuhi!" Then there is the bewildering sound of them running away.

Her vision clears. The sky is quite blue today.

She feels somewhat resigned when the scrunched up, angry face of another kid with wild black hair appears in her vision. "What the_ hell_, Uchiha," a boy (she is pretty sure he is a boy) shouts at her angrily, "You didn't even fight back! What is wrong with you?!"

He is addressing her with a shocking amount of familiarity. "Do I," Ayame coughs weakly, "know you?"

"I'm Yuuhi Kotaro, I'm in your class," he says, sounding aggrieved. He begins jostling her a little, turning her head from side to side with his hands. It hurts. She wishes he would stop.

Ayame doesn't remember anyone named Kotaro, though she is pretty sure there_ is_ a Yuuhi boy in her class. "Okay," she mumbles. He has one hand under her head, probably checking for head wounds, and the other is prodding her ribs carefully. She screams when the intrusive and not entirely welcome prodding turns into a burning hot flash of pain.

"Shit! Shit! Sorry! They really did a number on you... Stay here, okay? Don't fall asleep! I'm going to get some help, okay?"

"Okay," Ayame says again. He lays her back down carefully.

She stares up into the sky and waits. It occurs to her later that she doesn't doubt, even a little, that he is coming back.

The medic-nin who Kotaro brings back exclaims loudly and spends the next hour healing Ayame and muttering angrily under his breath about stupid bullies beating on little girls.

She doesn't bother to tell him she could have taken them out with half a thought if she'd been bothered to.

Kotaro doesn't say anything either, but after that day, he walks Ayame home everyday.

After a while, Ayame even starts to look forward to it. She is not going to tell anyone that though.

::*::

By the time Ayame is twelve, almost thirteen, her family thinks they are dating. She denies it constantly, but they won't stop speculating.

She wants to make chuunin this year and between the missions and the training with her genin team, she sees them much less than before. One of Manae-sama's new rules about entering the Police Force is that they have to be chuunin, although they no longer have to be Uchiha.

Still, she is one of the few genin from her graduating class who hasn't decided to take advantage of their "adult" status to move out, even temporarily, so the questioning is hard to avoid.

"He's very cute though," Auntie Yuriko says dubiously. "And you spend all your free time together."

Ayame says, "We're on the same team and we're both training together to enter the Police Force. That's it." The words w_e're just friends_ die on her tongue, because Ayame isn't sure if they are.

She would like to say it though. If that is what they are, she thinks Kotaro is a good one.

Little Mikoto, now precociously three years old, fixes her big, thoughtful eyes on Ayame and says, "K'taro's nice. Don' you like him?"

Ayame's heart doesn't skip a beat, and she most certainly doesn't flush. "Of course I do," she says brusquely, "He's a good teammate."

Hotaru, who is two years older than her and something like a cousin once removed, actually laughs out loud at that. "You're awful at lying, Ayame," she chuckles. "It is a good thing you're aiming for the Police Force. Someone as honest and straightforward as you would be wasted anywhere else."

Hotaru is sitting at the low table with Yuriko, sipping tea. She is visiting again, something she started doing a lot after being chosen as one of Manae-sama's main attendants. Ayame has never asked her about it, but she suspects that it is related to Masato, who has recently proved himself to be something of a prodigy by graduating from the Academy at only seven years old. Ayame hasn't seen him at all recently: he has been too busy being bounced from jounin to jounin. No one is free to take on a full genin team right now.

Right now, Ayame eyes Hotaru suspiciously. She is pretty sure there is an insult buried in what Hotaru said somewhere, but she can't find it and Hotaru's guileless smile is sufficiently disarming. Just in case, she gives Hotaru her coldest look, the one that makes her classmates suck in their breath and stand very still.

It has no effect on Hotaru, who just goes on smiling at her.

Ayame doesn't sigh, but she does give up on trying to intimidate her cousin.

Hotaru is going to be a terrifyingly efficient Academy teacher when she finally decides to put her mind to passing the test. For now, the Academy students are safe while Hotaru putters around the Uchiha complex, doing Manae-sama's bidding and going out on the odd C-ranked mission.

"I've got to go," she half-lies to escape further probing. "Dai is working on some sort of taijutsu move that he wants to show me and Kotaro."

"Maito Dai?" Yuriko asks, surprised. "He's still a genin? I would have thought for sure he'd be promoted by now. Say hi from his old sensei for me, will you?"

"Sure," Ayame says, and quickly stands up and gives Mikoto a kiss on the cheek affectionately. "Don't get into trouble while I'm gone, Mikoto! You know your mother won't stand for it." Yuriko makes an amused sound of agreement.

"Who, me?" Mikoto replies innocently, as if she is not the main instigator of strange adventures that the other kids get swept up in. She is much better at straight faces than Ayame is. She wonders if that is a result of more exposure to Auntie Yuriko and Hotaru from a young age.

The problem is that Mikoto never quite _means_ for anything to come of it. She is bright and curious, unafraid and unashamed, and always seems to have just the right words or questions at just the right time to get the ball rolling.

"Yes, you," Ayame says seriously, tapping her mock-sternly on the forehead. "You menace, you." She is hiding a smile, but Mikoto beams as if she can see it anyway.

Yuriko sighs dramatically, but her eyes sparkle with humor. "It's because Ryuunosuke and Kagami-sensei love it when she makes trouble for them. They're encouraging her, those rascals. They're going to regret it in the future, mark my words."

Mikoto giggles. "Bye, Ayame!" she sing-songs. She's a happy and generous child, and Ayame loves her more than life itself. Her unconditional love and affection has been a huge balm to Ayame's soul.

"Bye!" Ayame calls and nods at Auntie Yuriko and Hotaru as she leaves. Hotaru tilts her head at her in acknowledgement and Auntie Yuriko waves.

After Mikoto was born, Ayame started to see the good things again, remembering how much she loved her parents and her brother. The memories still come with pain, but it's dulled now. It has helped immensely with helping Ayame open her heart to her family again.

A small insistent voice adds, _And Kotaro._

Her face flushes, and in her distraction, she nearly crashes into Kagami-ojiisama when he tries to enter the house as she's trying to exit. "Sorry," she mutters.

Kagami-ojiisama smiles at her. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

Goosebumps crawl up her spine, and she has to look away from his eyes. Sometimes, she feels like Kagami-ojiisama can see right through her, right to the dark place where she had once wished for her whole clan to die. "I've got training with Kotaro and Dai," she blurts out.

"Oh," Kagami-ojiisama says, still smiling. "That's wonderful."

"I'll be back before dinner," she says. She doesn't know why she's still talking. She should leave. She should staple her mouth shut.

Kagami-ojiisama just says, "You should bring your teammates over for dinner sometime. It would be nice to meet them."

"Oh," Ayame says. "Um, sure. Yeah." She smiles too, for lack of anything else to do. It feels unnatural. She doesn't really smile much. She doesn't know if she is doing it right. Maybe she's showing too much teeth. "I'll... ask them about it."

"Wonderful," Kagami-ojiisama says again. Is it just her, or is his smile starting to look a little strained?

"Bye," Ayame blurts out, and makes a run for it, passing by a surprised Uncle Ryuunosuke.

"Hi Ayame," he says. She catches the tail end of a wave when she turns her head to greet him belatedly.

"Welcome back from your mission, Uncle Ryuunosuke!" she calls behind her, but turns her head quickly and keeps running to hide the chagrined blush that spreads across her face when she accidentally meets eyes with Kagami-ojiisama again.

She runs all the way to the practice field where she is supposed to meet Kotaro and Dai.

She is two hours early, and ends up falling asleep propped up against one of the training dummies while waiting.

::*::

Ayame is seventeen when she realizes that Kotaro is attractive, and that other people have begun to notice.

Mikoto has become close friends with the new girl from Uzushiogakure, the red-headed one that is way too easy to tease, even though it sometimes results in property damage.

Ayame has been appointed training instructor, and this is her second bunch of chuunin Police Force wannabes. They look more promising than her last bunch, but they also look a lot more scared.

Ayame derives a certain amount of satisfaction from this, and not a small amount of smugness. She knows what they see when they look at her: a girl, small and capable, but a girl nonetheless. The first group tried to sweet-talk and patronize her, and then learned very quickly to call her_ ma'am._

Only four out of twenty of her first round of newbies actually made it to the second stage of training. Nine weren't up to her standards and have to repeat the year with another instructor, and seven quit within six months.

Manae-sama may have made the decision to allow non-Uchiha to join the Police Force, but Ayame has her pride as an Uchiha - her parents were proud Police Force shinobi. She can't just let anyone wear the uniform. They have to be _elite._ There's a war going on, and the Police Force isn't just a place to settle internal disputes. They are also Konoha's first line of defense.

Kotaro, her assistant instructor, raises an eyebrow at her during the first scheduled unarmed sparring practice and says, "Shall we show them how it's done?"

Ayame can't help her fierce grin in response. A few of the trainees shiver.

Kotaro explodes into action without any warning, launching himself at her. She ignores his feint to the left and blocks his kick to her head, grabbing his ankle and using his own momentum to toss him towards a small clustered group of particularly timid looking trainees.

They scatter. Kotaro seems to ignore them, casually landing on his feet and launching himself at Ayame again.

"Three rules for unarmed sparring practice," Ayame explains breathlessly, as she ducks under his punch and tackles him around the middle, throwing him hard onto the tatami mats. "Only taijutsu, no biting, and no killing. This is essentially free-for-all endurance training - we do this for an hour, with teams." She tries to stand, and yelps when Kotaro grabs her wrist and uses his feet to flip her hard onto her back over his head, and knocks the breath out of her.

"Teams can change," he continues without losing a beat, rolling onto his feet. She quickly does the same and tries to swipe his feet from under him. He jumps out of the way without blinking an eye. "Teams are represented by the color of your tag, and me and Ayame will occasionally go around changing the tags. You get points for each successful attack on another team, but lose them for attacking your own team member."

"This doesn't sound very difficult," one of the trainees says dubiously. She is one of the few who hasn't looked nervous so far.

Kotaro winks at her. "You're chuunin," he says. "It shouldn't be."

To Ayame's utter shock, the chuunin flushes. Ayame's punch to Kotaro's shoulder still takes him off guard, but it doesn't pack quite the punch it usually does because she falters at the last moment, startled by a sudden shifting in her perspective. For a moment, Kotaro is not just her friend and partner, but an attractive man, built solidly with an expressive, good-looking face that always seems ready to smile.

Kotaro flips her over his shoulder easily, but she sees the quizzical look he sends her. She shakes her head to reassure him that it is nothing, and adds "Just wait until round two." Ayame's cheeks are burning, but she hopes that he doesn't notice.

"You've all got your tags already," Kotaro says, finishing their routine. "Let's start." He launches himself at an unsuspecting Nara boy, and Ayame sweeps the feet out from the trainee unfortunate enough to be standing near her when she landed. She throws herself into the sparring session, relieved to have something else to concentrate on.

A few hours later, after the last of the stragglers stumble exhausted out of the training room, she has nothing and no one between her and her sudden uneasiness. Cleaning up alone with Kotaro is doing nothing to help her settle that.

"You okay?" Kotaro asks her, handing her some water. "You seemed off."

Ayame laughs nervously. "I'm fine. Um, I was just - I just realized something was all."

Kotaro raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Planning to share?"

"Oh," Ayame says, "No."

His eyebrows go up even higher. "Okay." He looks away, and the discomfort roiling in Ayame's stomach boils over.

"I was just, you know, thinking about that trainee," she blurts out, and immediately regrets it.

Kotaro freezes. His eyes slide slowly back to her. "Which trainee?" he asks casually, but his voice is that low, dangerous tone that he gets sometimes when he is furious.

Ayame's skin prickles and her cheeks flush harder. It is a good tone for him, she thinks absently. She feels like her heart might beat out of her chest. This is probably how that the trainee he was talking to earlier felt when he looked at her.

She has no idea why he sounds so angry about the trainee though. Maybe he didn't want her to know? That is ridiculous though, because Ayame and Kotaro have been together for it seems like forever - she knows all his tells. She would have found out eventually.

"Yeah," she says, confused. "The Inuzuka girl? She seemed to like you."

Kotaro stares at her for a long moment. "You're talking about at the very beginning of the class?"

"Yeah," Ayame says, befuddled. Are they talking about different things now? She thinks they are.

Kotaro opens his mouth and then closes it. "Well, you seemed to like, who was that? The Nara boy?"

"Takumi?" Ayame asks, surprised. "Yeah, he was much better than I expected. It was fun sparring with him."

Kotaro is staring at her again. It's unnerving. "So, it's a... purely professional interest."

"Of course," Ayame says with a short laugh. "What else would it be?"

Kotaro is quiet so long that Ayame would think that he had fallen asleep if not for the fact his eyes were open.

"...Kotaro?" she ventures.

He blinks and then sighs. "You know," Kotaro says, "People say that the Uchiha is a clan of geniuses, but... you're really not very smart."

Ayame flushes wildly. "I don't know what you mean by that," she starts to say, but the words die on her lips because Kotaro is looking at her very intensely. She is sure her whole face has gone redder than Kushina's hair.

She has to fight every single one of her instincts to keep from backing away when Kotaro brings his hands up to cup her face in his hands. Everything suddenly seems too real: the too-bright light in the room, the thick smell of sweat that assaults her sensitive nose. She can smell Kotaro's skin, salty and warm. His hands are hot on her skin.

Ayame whispers, "What are you..."

"Shh," Kotaro whispers back, and then he is kissing her.

She is - she's okay with that. When he pulls back to check that this is okay, she confirms it by pulling _him_ in for a kiss this time.

::*::

"I knew it," Auntie Yuriko says triumphantly.

"_Everyone_ knew it," Hotaru disagrees, shaking her head. "Only Ayame didn't know it."

"Shut up," Ayame groans, her face buried in her hands. She feels like she is going to be blushing forever, she is so embarrassed and pleased at the same time. Happiness seems like a never ending fountain of good feelings, leading her to think of Kotaro, leading her to blush and giggle and hide her face.

Auntie Yuriko and Hotaru coo gleefully at her. Kagami-ojiisama just grunts, looking uncharacteristically grumpy despite the fact Mikoto is beating him at poker, which he usually loves.

"Sensei, you're bringing us down," Auntie Yuriko says, rolling her eyes. "Be happy! Look how happy he makes your granddaughter!"

Ayame feels unbearably grateful for her, and guilty. Auntie Yuriko has not been quite the same since Uncle Ryuunosuke never returned from a mission a couple years ago. Even though she puts on a brave front, her smile is a little less vibrant, her eyes a little less bright. However, her happiness for Ayame is effusive and generous, and overwhelmingly genuine.

"I do like that," Kagami-ojiisama admits reluctantly. He glares down at his cards.

"Are you going to get married?" Mikoto asks. Kagami-ojiisama looks like he's been struck by lightning.

"She'd have to talk to Manae-sama about that," Hotaru says blithely.

"And me!" Kagami-ojiisama practically shouts.

"Yes, yes," Auntie Yuriko says with a sigh.

"All in," Mikoto says, shoving her chips into the middle, and Kagami-ojiisama gets distracted again.

_All in_, Ayame thinks, hiding a smile. That sounds nice.

::*::

Ayame is twenty-one, and she wakes up with a jerk from her nap with a vague sense of foreboding. Ayame automatically reaches out for Obito, and then remembers that Mikoto has him and she likes to take Obito outside.

When she goes to find other people in the house, it is just Auntie Yuriko furiously cleaning the house. Kotaro is shouldering the burden of being the main instructor for the trainees now that she's gone, so he is probably at HQ as usual.

Kagami-ojiisama is likely there as well, though it is almost the end of the working day so he will likely be heading home soon. He is actually out of the house _more_ now that he is retired from shinobi missions. It had been quite an honor, though not entirely a surprise when he had been appointed the new Head. The whole clan had known that Manae-sama would step down as Head to train Fugaku to be the next clan head when he graduated from the Academy, and Kagami-ojiisama, who has close ties to the current Hokage, was one of the names most often brought up as her replacement.

"Do you need any help?" Ayame offers.

Yuriko pauses to smile at her. "No, I'm fine. I'm almost done anyway."

Ayame nods, and sits out of the way, ready to move if Yuriko needs her to. "Is someone coming over?"

"Sakumo's off on a mission again, so Saki-chan will be staying with us for a while," Auntie Yuriko says, her brow creased disapprovingly as usual. She thinks Saki-chan is too young for Sakumo, that Sakumo is courting tragedy by marrying a civilian girl.

Ayame is more sympathetic. The war has polarized the population in Konoha. The single population now consists mostly of widows and widowers, hardened veterans of war, and young people who have had to grow up too fast. She thinks Saki-chan could have done much worse than Sakumo.

Which is not to say she doesn't understand Auntie Yuriko's point of view. Her aunt has only become more invested and more protective of the people around her since Masato made chuunin, moved out and started going out on missions so often that Ayame is more surprised to see him in the village than she is to realize she hasn't seen him in months. Auntie Yuriko is just worried is all.

"When did that happen?" Ayame yawns, covering her mouth, but intrigued. It is not that often since the end of the war that there are emergency missions that need the White Fang's attention.

"He dropped by an hour ago to let us know," Auntie Yuriko says, "Do you mind picking Saki-chan up? I can go, but I thought it might be nice for you to get out of the complex."

That _would_ be nice. Walking to the Hatake compound will be a good chance to stretch her legs, and Saki-chan is always a pleasure to spend time with. "I'll go," Ayame says easily. A familiar wave of humor overcomes her thinking of Saki-chan and she has to share. "Did you know that Saki-chan named the baby Kakashi?"

"Hatake _Kakashi?_" Auntie Yuriko laughs. "She's got a good sense of humor, that girl."

Feeling a warm sense of lingering contentment, Ayame goes to wash up a little, and then heads over to the Hatake compound.

No one is there, so Ayame heads over to the civilian market on a hunch that she is probably picking up food to cook them later. Saki-chan has an overdeveloped sense of obligation and is incredibly sweet like that.

On her way there, she sees something unusual enough to give her pause. A small crowd of red-headed people headed away from the heart of the village, casually but with intent. Two men who look like twins, one woman, and a young girl that Ayame realizes with a start is Kushina. Kushina is holding the one red-headed woman's hand, looking like she wants to cry.

Ayame's instincts tingle with warning. She steps into the group's path and smiles with too many teeth. The adults glance at each other, and then the two men step forward in front of Kushina and the woman.

"Hello, Kushina," she says, purposefully not meeting any of their eyes and addressing Kushina specifically. "Who are your friends?"

Kushina looks at her, then glances up at the woman, who smiles reassuringly at her and steps forward to speak instead. "I'm Kiyomi," she says. "Kushina's sister. These are our brothers Daisuke and Yuuto. We're escorting Kushina home to Uzushiogakure." Ayame sees her fingers slide discreetly into the folds of her clothing. The brothers' shoulders are tense, and their hands haven't left their pockets.

There is definitely something wrong here. These foreign ninja aren't even being subtle.

Ayame keeps smiling too wide and nods slowly, her mind whirring. She forces her body language to stay relaxed and unconcerned. "That seems very sudden," she says, "Mikoto didn't tell me you were going home, Kushina."

Kushina sniffles and wipes her eyes. "I just found out. My father is dying. I need to go to him before it's too late."

"I understand," Ayame says kindly. "I just think that the Hokage will be very worried if his ward leaves the village so suddenly. But I'm sure that your brothers and sister have notified the Hokage properly already."

Kushina opens her mouth, and then Ayame sees the incongruity of the situation dawn on her. She looks around at the people around her, mouth falling open.

'Kiyomi' says, through a smile so forced that it looks painful, "Of course we have."

Kushina yanks her hand out of the woman's hand, but the woman moves fast, grabbing onto Kushina's wrist. Kushina gasps in pain, and then cries out, "Ayame, they're-"

Before she is even finished talking, Ayame whips out her civilian whistle, given to her when she went on maternity leave, and sends a piercing note of warning to the closest patrolling Police officers.

"Shit!" one of the men hisses. Ayame tries very hard not to think too hard about what she is doing, and throws herself at the man closest to her and snaps his neck.

Kushina screams, "Daisuke!" but the man who falls to the ground already looks completely different. Most tellingly, he no longer has long red hair, but short white locks, and his hitai-ate no longer sports the symbol of Konoha's ally Uzushiogakure but of Kumogakure. Ayame feels an unexpected welling of relief, but quickly shoves it aside. She didn't have time to regret killing a man that looked like Kushina's brother. She has no weapons, no backup yet, and while she has been training when she can, she is nowhere near peak condition. She has already lost the element of surprise too.

Ayame barely has any time to process this before the second man is upon her, screaming with fury. "You bitch, you killed Amai!"

_Shit_ - she just barely dodges being cut in half by his katana by throwing herself backwards, but that puts her off balance. He takes advantage of that by thrusting the katana forward to impale her while it is more difficult for her to manoeuvre, but she dodges that as well by manipulating her momentum, letting herself fall backwards but also throwing her body to the side. A controlled fall - she tucks one leg underneath herself as support and aims a kick to the back of his knees.

He is too good though, and way too fast. The enemy ninja flashes out of sight and reappears several feet above her, balanced on the balls of his feet on a tree branch. "You're not bad," he says, dropping his genjutsu altogether, reverting back to his own dark skin and light sandy hair. He props the arm holding his katana up on one knee, the katana curving out in front of him like a warning. "Killing you would be a waste of my energy though. You're not even armed," he says disdainfully.

Ayame sneers back, pulling her lips back to bare her teeth at him. "Didn't need a weapon to kill your friend though, now did I?"

He snarls back, tensing to jump at her again, but the woman cuts in, "Karai! We don't have time for this!"

Kushina says loudly, "You tricked me!"

"Please, we barely even did anything," the woman says scornfully, holding tightly to Kushina's wrist despite the fact Kushina keeps trying to yank her hand out of the older woman's grip. "All we had to do was smile at you and you were ready to run away with us. If we'd known you wanted to get away from Konoha so badly, we wouldn't have even bothered with the genjutsu." She looks directly at Ayame. "We don't want any trouble. Just let us take the girl. She doesn't even want to be here anyway."

"That's not true!" Kushina shouts.

"Oh?" the kunoichi says smirking darkly. "All we had to do was say something about your father and you were willing to abandon this insipid little village."

"That's family," Kushina says obstinately. "That's different."

"And you don't have any family here, do you, poor little girl?" the woman says pityingly. She smirks. "What if I told you we were really taking you back to your family? That your father hired us to take you back because he's decided to break Uzushio's alliance with Konoha?"

Kushina looks horrified. "You're lying!"

"Am I?" the woman mocks.

The man up in the tree smirks. Ayame keeps her eyes flickering from him to Kushina and the woman. She needs to save Kushina. She doesn't need to know _why_ Kushina is important to the village, she just knows that Kushina _is_.

To be honest, she would save Kushina anyway. She is Mikoto's best friend, their household's Red-haired Menace. Ayame is not sure when Kushina became a vital part of her life, but regardless she can't see Kushina as anything less than family anymore.

"She_ is_ lying, Kushina," Ayame says lowly, keeping her eyes on the enemy ninja. "Don't forget the mark of friendship represented by the whirlpool symbol on the back of Konoha's uniforms. Your father sent you here because of his faith in the relationship between Uzushio and Konoha. Your very presence here is a symbol of the close bond between our villages that won't be broken and the friendships you made here are testament to that."

She spares a glance at Kushina, who looks troubled, and decides to push a little harder.

Ruthlessly, Ayame asks, "Or do you think so little of your friendship with Mikoto? This woman is only wearing an illusion of your sister in Uzushio, but you know in your heart that Mikoto loves you as a true sister." Kushina's head dips forward, her hair falling forward to hide her eyes. Ayame desperately wishes she knew what Kushina was thinking.

"But how would we know your sisters and brothers if we weren't telling the truth?" the woman asks sweetly. "You know as well as anyone that your family has been cautious about revealing the true members of the Uzumaki main family."

Ayame grits her teeth. That is true enough - even in Konoha, the actual number and names of Uzumaki Ashina's children is only speculation, and the family keeps it this way with careful misdirection. There are even rumors that all shinobi of Uzushiogakure adopt the surname "Uzumaki" for this reason.

Kushina seems to be pondering the same thing. She looks up at the woman thoughtfully. The hand attached to the wrist that the Kumo kunoichi is gripping moves to wrap around the other woman's wrist in an odd variation of a handshake. The woman smiles triumphantly.

Kushina smiles back, and then_ yanks_, pulling the woman forward hard to meet her chakra enhanced punch. The woman lets go of Kushina's wrist and flies across the street. Ayame feels a bloom of pride and satisfaction in her heart - she remembers Kotaro talking about that move.

She doesn't have any time for reflection though. The other Kumo-nin's katana comes flying down at her, and Ayame uses her own chakra infused palms to stop it with her hands.

Too late, she recognizes the triumphant smirk on the Kumo-nin's face as she feels a knife pierce through her back.

_Another enemy-nin_, she thinks, _I should have-_

Ayame falls to one knee, katana still between her palms. She coughs,_ oh that burns_, and blood stains the stone pavement beneath her.

"Ayame!" Kushina screams. In her distraction, the kunoichi from Kumo tackles her and binds her hands with something metal that Ayame cannot see. Kushina screams when the woman tightens them viciously and then shoves Kushina hard to the ground and sits on Kushina's legs so she can get to Kushina's flailing feet as well.

"If you'd just come with us," the woman says coolly, "she wouldn't have had to die. Hayai, you have good timing. You took care of the backup then?"

"Just the first responders, but Ginkaku and Kinkaku started their attack and bought us some time," says the presence at Ayame's back. The voice is harsh and gruff. "Unexpectedly, I saw a couple other unfriendly faces, but they were here for Konoha, not for us." Ayame can practically feel the smirk in his voice. "Fortunately for us, Konoha has a lot of enemies."

"Who?" the woman asks, intrigued.

"Does it matter? It's better if we move on now anyway." He yanks the knife roughly out of Ayame's body, making her scream in pain. "Ugh," he says, disgusted. "Just kill her already, Karai."

"With pleasure," the enemy ninja in front of Ayame hisses. He pulls the katana from between Ayame's hands, and then -

He gasps when Ayame uses the last of her strength to push herself up and force her chakra-infused hand through his chest. The pain that explodes in her body and behind her eyes distracts her from her revulsion at herself as she closes her fist around his heart and tears it out. He doesn't even have time to scream.

She whirls around to try to take out the man behind her, but before she can do anything, he backhands her so hard that she goes flying into a tree.

Ayame collapses at the base of the trunk, but makes a good attempt to get back up. Before she can, a hand wraps around her throat and drags her upright and up onto her feet and slams her back against the tree. She gasps in pain and grabs uselessly at the enemy ninja, smearing his comrade's blood all over his face. He closes his hands hard around her neck until she lets her arms fall to her sides.

The new ninja stares at her, lip curling. "Harder to kill than expected," he muses. "But we can't have such a pretty little birdy telling tales of which way we went."

"Try to kill me," Ayame rasps out. "I dare you."

"So uncreative," Hayai says, and then shoves a thin knife through her throat to pin her to the tree, but not severing her spine. "I've learned my lesson about trying to kill you. This will have to do." He turns. "Come, Zurui. Bring the girl."

The woman has already gagged Kushina in addition to having bound Kushina's feet and hands. She has also thrown the girl over one shoulder so Ayame can't see her face. She nods, and then both Kumo-nin run the way the group had been heading in the first place, leaving Ayame to drown in her own blood.

Tears are leaking down Ayame's cheeks, unbidden.

She doesn't want to die.

She wants to see Obito grow up.

She wants to see Mikoto become the incredible kunoichi she's going to be.

She wants to finally apologize to Kagami-ojiisama for being so angry with him so long, for never quite forgiving him for the deaths of her parents and her brother; she sees it now, his own grief from losing his own children, his attempts to connect with his withdrawn, stone-faced granddaughter.

She wants to thank Auntie Yuriko for being there for her all these years, for being kind and thoughtful and strong.

She wants to meet Hotaru's students when they're grown up, see the pride gleaming in Hotaru's eyes as they become strong Konoha shinobi.

She wants to grow old with Kotaro, spend the rest of her life with him whipping the Konoha Police Force into shape. She wants to tell him that she loves him, probably has always loved him from the moment he had saved her from those bullies at the Academy and from herself, and that she would love him and only him until the end of time.

Ayame weakly brings her clean hand up to her mouth and wipes some blood onto her fingers. She uses the tree as a base to summon her ninken with the last of her dwindling chakra.

Two dogs appear. They are both horrified at the state she is in. "Ayame," Rakku starts to growl, but she wordlessly offers her bloody hand to him. He shakes for one moment, whining, and then sniffs her hand and runs off. He is best at being discreet. He will follow the scent without being detected while leaving a trail for Shippou to follow.

Shippou noses her leg and says, "You were a good one. Your parents would have been proud of a daughter like you."

Ayame surprises herself by smiling. _Thank you_, she thinks at her, trying to convey the message with just her eyes.

Shippou barks in acknowledgment and runs off to find help. Ayame squints after her. Her vision is getting blurry, but if she concentrates, she can see the Uchiha symbol on the back of Shippou's uniform bouncing away.

Abruptly, Ayame decides she is tired of being pinned to the tree like a training dummy.

She reaches up to yank the knife out of her neck. It takes a couple tries, but she manages, probably doing more damage to her throat. Her knees try to give out, but she makes it a couple steps before she falls forward. She tries to fall gracefully, but only succeeds in jamming her shoulder into the ground and knocking her head hard into the stone pavement.

It hurts.

She groans and rolls over onto her back to look up into the sky.

The sky is very blue today.

She closes her eyes and waits.


	12. Chapter 12

i know i said friday, but i lied. surprise! i'm not great at coordinating action, so let me know if something is really off and is beyond the scope of suspended disbelief.

i feel like i need to make some mention of this: i am fairly certain that parts of this chapter are somehow inspired by the inuyasha series. i can't quite pinpoint what it is, but i can't shake the feeling that it's in there somewhere.

again, warning for violence and death.

* * *

><p>A little more than half an hour later after Mikoto shuts the trap door, there is a knock from the other side. Mikoto's mother calls, "It's safe now! Come up!"<p>

Saki breathes a sigh of relief and moves to stand up, frowning as she tries to balance both babies in her arms. She blinks when Mikoto shakes her head and holds up a hand to indicate, _wait_. She sits back down, but at the edge of the couch, looking mildly impatient.

The safe words are, _Are you alright down there?_ Anything else is a signal for trouble above. Mikoto calls back, "Saki-san fell asleep! She seems so tired recently, it might be better to let her sleep for a while.

Her mother coughs once. That means one enemy. Mikoto's heart races.

"Why don't you come up, then, darling?" Yuriko bargains. "Let Saki-chan sleep it off. You know how hard she has been working lately."

No mention of the babies, so Mikoto carefully does the same. "I'm a bit tired too and it's comfortable down here. I'll keep Saki-san company."

There is a low, unfamiliar chuckle from the other side of the trap door. "How sweet," the dry, thin voice of an old woman drawls. "I see now that trying to manipulate you this way was a mistake. No matter. I have other methods of getting what I want."

Saki shrieks. "Mikoto!"

Mikoto whirls around to see Saki practically in tears, Obito in her lap - her now free hand grips a knife that hovers over Kakashi's tiny neck. "What are you doing?!" Mikoto cries out, aghast.

Saki begins to cry. "I'm not doing it," she sobs, "I can't control myself. _Please_, Mikoto, help Kakashi!"

Mikoto jumps forward, grabs Obito out of the way with one hand and Saki's knife-holding hand with the other, trying to drag the knife away from Kakashi. Kakashi squints at the knife, but luckily the swaddling keeps him from moving in a way that might cause him to hurt himself.

The old woman's voice comes mockingly through the door. "That's not going to work."

"What do you want?" Mikoto grits out. Saki's knife is putting her on edge.

"Just come out," the old woman says soothingly. "That's all I want."

Mikoto very much doubts that. She hesitates.

Saki shrieks again when her arm lifts higher, angling the knife more sharply down at her son. Baby Kakashi is almost preternaturally calm, watching the knife gleam in the candlelight without stirring. Obito, on the other hand, squirms and smacks his lips distastefully in Mikoto's hold, a sure sign that he is ready to start wailing at any moment.

"Stop!" Mikoto shouts, panicked. "We'll come out!"

Saki's arm lowers. The young woman has gone very pale. Mikoto helps her stand up and carefully leads Saki back up the stairs. Saki can't seem to drag her eyes away from Kakashi, making it hard to get her up the stairs. The hand that is not clutching Kakashi still holds the knife in a shaking, white-knuckled grip.

"Watch your step," Mikoto warns her when Saki stubs her toe. The noise Saki makes in response isn't even words - it is just a sound of anguish torn from her throat.

Mikoto presses the trap door open cautiously, making sure that Saki is behind her. Before her, in plain view, is her mother holding her own katana to her own throat, looking utterly furious to be put in this position. Mikoto can see the tension in her body as her mother fights to move her arms and legs.

Mikoto shifts her eyes around the kitchen and then sees a pair of feet directly to her right. She looks up at an old woman looking down at her, unsmiling, one hand raised as if she is directing a puppet show and the other covering an eye with two fingers. Mikoto automatically scrambles back but stops when Saki gasps in warning - just in time to keep from getting stabbed with the knife that Saki swings up at her.

"Ah ah ah," the old woman says, a cold humor entering her eyes. "Leaving so soon, after all the trouble I went to inviting you up here? I don't think so. Come up and stand by your mother, if you please. Don't try any funny stuff, or the baby dies." Saki shudders and uncurls her body to tuck Kakashi further away out of sight, as if it could protect him.

"Puppet Master Chiyo," Yuriko hisses at the old woman, but she says it for Mikoto's sake.

Mikoto's eyes widen - Chiyo, leader of Sunagakure's infamous Puppet Brigade, who has, very publicly, sworn vengeance on the White Fang of Konoha for the deaths of her son and his wife. How did she get into Konoha, let alone _their_ house in the Uchiha complex the exact time that Saki is supposed to come over? A sense of deepening dread curls through Mikoto as she slowly pushes the trap door open and steps out into the kitchen to stand by her mother, as instructed.

Her mind reels with the implications. There is a traitor in her village.

The old woman speaking again brings Mikoto's attention to the problem at hand. "I see my name precedes me," the old woman says, smirking. "I would expect no less from the daughter of Konoha's infamous Shadow Man. I confess, I was not surprised when your particular mark of death disappeared after Iwagakure leaked your information to the public, but I find myself rather intrigued by the notion of one of Konoha's best assassins being reduced to a housewife. It is rather..." her lip curls "...quaint."

For some reason, Saki hasn't followed Mikoto up yet. The knife has dropped back down to her side, but she stays huddled and weeping over Kakashi only halfway up the stairs. A suspicion is born in Mikoto's mind and she starts to watch Chiyo more carefully. She holds Obito securely to her chest, praying that he doesn't start crying and that he can still be soothed by the rhythmic sound of her heartbeat even though it feels like it is going a mile a minute.

"Come up, girl," Chiyo says impatiently, and brings her hand down from her face to extend her fingers out. Saki starts shuffling up the stairs. From the shaking in her legs and the wide, bewildered look on her face, it is not of her own volition. Still, the knife is now pointed at Kakashi again, as extra insurance, perhaps.

_Chakra strings_, Mikoto remembers. Ninja puppeteers use chakra strings to control their puppets.

Her eyes narrow. If Chiyo can control their bodies, why would she need the extra insurance? And why hasn't she used her leverage already to kill them? Or to take control of Mikoto's body? There is something that Mikoto is missing, some key component that she needs to figure out before they all end up dead.

Where are Kagami-ojiisama and Jiraiya? Are they around, unseen? Mikoto doesn't know. She will have to act as if they won't be around to support her.

Yuriko catches Mikoto's eye and flickers her eyes meaningfully at Saki, who is being unceremoniously marched up and around to a spot right next to her so Chiyo can look at them both. Mikoto doesn't understand what she is saying - it is a given that Saki is the priority, that they need to protect her and Kakashi. That seems too obvious for her mother to be making a point to say that though._  
><em>

"So pretty," Chiyo says, lips twisting. "And young. Civilian too, by the looks of it. I suppose it doesn't bother you that he's a murderer then." Saki shakes her head in denial, but doesn't seem able to speak.

"There is just as much blood on your hands as ours," Yuriko says, narrowing her eyes. "Don't act as if you have the higher ground here, Chiyo. When your son and his wife met the White Fang on the battlefield, they met as enemies and died as shinobi, with all that entails."

"Hmph," the old woman replies disdainfully.

"How did you find us?" Mikoto asks warily, hoping to buy some more time.

"As you've probably guessed," Chiyo says, eyes still locked on Saki and Kakashi, though Mikoto doesn't doubt that the old woman would take her head off with her mother's katana if she tried anything, "I got a tip that the White Fang just had a son and I could find his pretty little wife and child here because he was going to be called off on a very important mission." Her eyes flick over to Yuriko. "You might want to tell your father, although I wouldn't be surprised if the Shadow Man of Konoha already knew all about it."

Stiffly, Yuriko says, "My father would never betray this village."

"Ah, but the Shadow Man has his little games, hasn't he," Chiyo muses. "When you've got so many fingers in so many different pies, it's harder to be sure that you don't lose a finger to a knife someone else is holding. Trust is a high stakes games for shinobi, and the Shadow Man has higher stakes than most."

Mikoto listens to the exchange in bewilderment. She hardly knows Danzou-ojiisama. In all the years she has been alive, she only remembers meeting him twice, though her mother says that he used to visit a lot more when she was a baby. The gently smiling bandaged man who patted her head and told her to be a good girl hardly seems the type to be called 'Shadow Man.'_  
><em>

"What do you want?" Saki bursts out, tears streaming silently down her face. Her face has gone splotchy with emotion, but her jaw is set. That seems more like the woman that Mikoto knows. Saki might be a civilian, but she still has the will of fire in her. Even the frailest citizen of Konoha does - otherwise, they wouldn't be able to survive in a ninja village.

Chiyo looks at her again. "Revenge," she says simply. "I want the White Fang to understand the pain of losing a son."

Saki screams and then begins try to thrash.

Mikoto only has a moment to wonder_ how can she move?_ before several things happen at once. Chiyo says, "Calm _down_, girl," and then Yuriko roars with triumph and throws herself and her katana forward, piercing through the old woman's right arm. The old woman screams as her bone cracks and shatters.

Before retiring, Yuriko had been known as the Bone Dancer for how she could use her katana, chakra, and her understanding of the human body to devastating effect. Chiyo will probably never be able to use that arm again.

Mikoto's body is moving before she has entirely understood what is happening - she darts forward and disarms Saki, sending the knife clattering to the floor. Despite the fact that it will limit her mobility, she grabs Kakashi too. Then she pushes Saki into a corner and stands in front of the woman, biting her lip as she tries to think what she can do with _two _babies in her arms.

"You'll live," Yuriko says unsympathetically as Chiyo heaves with pain. "But only if you get medical attention soon. If you cooperate, I'll make sure you get it and we might even be able to arrange it so you will be returned to Sunagakure. The Hokage will not want your death or incarceration to be another impetus for war. Just tell us what you're doing here."

"I told you, I'm here to kill _his _son," Chiyo snarls and raises a hand but Yuriko yanks her katana out of Chiyo's arm, then uses her free hand to slam the old woman down on the kitchen floor. She quickly does a few seals with one hand, effectively using an earth technique to bury Chiyo's hands in the ground.

"I'm no fool, old woman," Yuriko spits, when she is done, aiming her katana at Chiyo's throat. "If you wanted that woman and her baby dead, they'd _be _dead. You haven't even pulled out your puppets and the technique you _did _use was never meant to hold an unwilling living creature, let alone two, correct? Otherwise, it wouldn't have given so easily when a civilian woman started to fight it. Who sent you?"

Chiyo's eyes widen and then her expression becomes shuttered and self-recriminating. "Truly, I am a fool," she says. She lets out a dry chuckle. "Too weak-hearted to kill a defenseless woman and her baby in cold blood, but too emotional to not to try. How ridiculous to find now that I have some humanity left in me." She sighs. "I don't know who sent the tip. It was my grandson who brought the information to me."

"Yes," says a figure that appears suddenly at the door, a thick robe obscuring his face, "And I have no use for such sentimental weakness."

"Sasori," Chiyo gasps, and Yuriko whirls around and jumps at him, but not in time to prevent the figure from raising its arm and letting several senbon from shoot out towards Mikoto and Saki.

Hands full, Mikoto can do nothing to protect anyone and there is nowhere to run. She quickly gauges the trajectory of the senbon and then screams, "Drop to the floor, Saki-san!" and does the same, curling her body over Obito and Kakashi, hoping that she herself won't get hit.

"There's no use," Sasori says calmly. "I can use my chakra to alter the trajectory of the poison."

Mikoto jerks her head up in horror, but it is too late. There are several senbon scattered uselessly around them, but one is embedded into Saki's neck. Still laying face down, Saki brings a trembling hand up to her neck to touch it.

Sasori stands still and faceless at the door. "My revenge has been had. That child will know the pain of losing his mother. Not a complete revenge, but I will leave the White Fang for more capable hands. Come, grandmother." The earth around Chiyo's hands crumbles away and she staggers up to her feet as the robed figure turns and walks off.

Yuriko starts to raise her katana, but Sasori says without turning around, "I can still choose to poison the little girl and her small charges. Choose wisely, woman. This is a new poison that my grandmother synthesized, and we have been made aware of Tsunade's recent absence from your village. Even if your medics manage to make an antidote, there is no telling how much damage will be done in the meantime."

Mikoto's mother curses and lets the point of her katana droop back down to the ground.

"Smart woman," Sasori says without inflection. "For that, I will grant you a boon. The infamous Gold and Silver Brothers are attacking the hospital in the middle of the village and four shinobi from Kumogakure are taking the opportunity to kidnap the girl from Uzushio during the confusion. My grandmother and I will leave without further trouble. I suggest you turn your attentions to this problem instead."

He leaves, Chiyo trailing behind him. The old woman glances back at them and then they both slide out of Mikoto's sight.

The girl from Uzushio. _Kushina_. Mikoto feels frozen in time, with the entire future unraveling before her. "He was talking about Kushina," Mikoto says. Everything seems too real, unreal, _surreal. _Mikoto needs to-

Needs to-

She needs to do _something, _but everything feels like the wrong answer. Shame and a sense of overwhelming failure curdle unpleasantly in Mikoto's stomach. _Don't worry, I'll protect you_, she had said to Saki not thirty minutes ago.

Mikoto struggles to reign in her emotions, her need for action warring with her despondent feeling of utter uselessness. She can't save Saki, and Kushina has been kidnapped by enemy ninja. Who knows where she could be by now?

Saki struggles to sit upwards. Her lips have turned blue-purple. "Kakashi," she rasps.

Yuriko runs to her and helps her sit up. "Don't move too much, it will make the poison spread faster."

"Kakashi," Saki says again insistently, reaching out for him.

Mikoto moves forward uncertainly, looking at her mother. Yuriko nods. With some reservations, Mikoto passes Kakashi to Saki, who takes the baby into her arms and begins rocking back and forth, keening with grief.

"Oh, Kakashi, my baby," Saki moans. "I love you, I love you so much. I don't want to leave you. No... no..."

Then, for the first time since Kakashi arrived at their house, Kakashi starts to make some noise. He coughs, and then opens his mouth to let out a wail.

Mikoto flinches and fights the urge to turn away. She doesn't want to see this, but it feels wrong to look away. In her arms, Obito whimpers and begins to cry as well.

Yuriko says urgently, "Give Obito here, Mikoto. You need to find the Hokage, tell him what is going on. Then you have to find a medic for Saki and send them here as fast as you can."

"Kushina-" Mikoto starts to say.

"I'm sorry, Mikoto, that's out of our hands now," Yuriko says fiercely. "Find the Hokage, he'll send someone after her and her kidnappers. They won't hurt her. If they've gone through all the trouble of kidnapping her, it's unlikely that they will. Either way, we _must _tell the Hokage what is happening. It is your duty as a shinobi of Konoha, Mikoto, you know that."

Unconsciously, Mikoto looks at Saki, huddled over Kakashi and stroking his face with shaking fingers. "I do, but..."

Yuriko's eyes gentle, though her voice loses none of its urgency. "I will do what I can for her. I spent some time studying to be a medic-nin, after all. If what that boy said was true, the Hokage might be at the hospital anyway. While you're there, see if you can find Honda Teruo. He's a medic-nin who specializes in poisons. He may not be the same caliber as Tsunade, but he is damn good. If there's anyone who can do anything for Saki now, it's him. Have you got all that?"

Numbly, Mikoto hands Obito over to her mother and nods. "Find the Hokage, tell him about Kushina. Then find Honda Teruo."

"Good," Yuriko says, "Honda Teruo is the uncle of your former Academy teacher. They look very much alike. He should be easy enough for you to recognize. Now go!"

Mikoto nods, and runs.


	13. Chapter 13

haha thank you again LilyVampire for the sweet review! if i was writing this for the reviews, i probably would have given up ages ago haha. that said, when i do get a review, i get really happy and excited to write more! thank you! (ahem - not to say that i wouldn't love more reviews though. i'm just saying, it's the holiday season and a review is a present you could all give me for freeeeeeeee ;3)

quick update. not much happens but it moves the story to the next bit. but minato returns in a much more significant way! :)

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><p>Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mikoto notes the hollow silence of the Uchiha complex as she runs out of her house. It is fairly unusual for this time of day. Her mother probably sent the signal about a possible danger around to the whole complex and everyone is probably indoors, some hidden away behind their own trap doors.<p>

This peaceful image shatters when she runs out onto the main road leading to the entrance. Despite her own urgency, Mikoto's footsteps slow to a walk as she looks around at the destruction disbelievingly.

A lot of it is property damage. The front gate and the nearby guard station are only half-standing, like they were collateral damage from a battle with someone who had destroyed things indiscriminately while passing through. It looks like it was recent, too. Sasori, maybe? Chiyo?

Several bodies lay very still on the floor. Guards for the entrance gate and the usual patrol units that make their rounds around the Uchiha complex, probably called to the front because of the disturbance.

Mikoto inhales a shaky breath as she recognizes them, her sense of uselessness settling deeper and more uncomfortably into her bones. Not all of them are Uchiha, but a fair number of them are her cousins.

There is not much blood, which could be a good sign. Still, she can't help looking around as she makes her way out of the complex.

Haru, who just made chuunin and works part-time at Yamanaka Flower Shop because he was trying to impress a Yamanaka girl and then discovered he legitimately liked flowers and flower arranging.

Natsume, whose dream is to retire early and inherit his parents' senbei stand.

Eiichi and Miyuki, siblings who started working as full time officers at the Police Force six months ago. Their rivalry with each other as children leveled actual buildings and produced some truly unbelievable stories though they try - tried? - not to do that anymore.

And others, that Mikoto has come into contact with less, but who have always had a spare moment to be kind to their younger cousins. Jirou. Kaede. Reika. Yousuke. Saya. Tsutomu. Keita.

Mikoto clenches her fist with frustration, and forces herself to look away from them and start running again.

There are no medics among the Uchiha clan, though there are some here and there who knew some healing jutsu to varying degrees. For the most part, all Uchiha clan shinobi went to the Police Force or went out on missions from the Hokage, specializing in fighting and related fields, trusting their comrades to heal them or going without. Mikoto has never thought about why - all she knows is now there is only one place where she can find people who will be able to help even the worst injured here.

Her lungs burn. She has easily run several times this length, but never so fast and with such urgency. Emotions bubble riotously in her throat, coming up to make her pant and her eyes water.

She doesn't spare anymore time looking at the bodies littered along the way, almost all wearing the Police Force uniform. She carefully does not think _collateral damage, just to create a distraction while-_

Mikoto pushes herself harder, so she won't be able to think about anything but the wind on her cheeks and the burn of her muscles.

When she reaches the hospital, she is greeted with rubble. Civilians are wandering around the area, looking shell shocked, touching the destruction with their hands as if they can't believe it is real.

Mikoto grabs the arm of the closest person, a woman, and asks, "Where is the Hokage?"

Somewhere off to her left, there is the conspicuous sound of something large crashing into something solid, the latter giving way with an echoing crumble.

Wordlessly, the woman points that way.

"Thank you," Mikoto says, and takes off again.

As she gets closer to the battle, she unexpectedly senses a malevolent chakra she has only encountered once before. Her skin crawls as she turns a corner and stops when she sees not one, but _two _massive six-tailed forms. Facing one is the Hokage, and facing off against the other is Jiraiya and, to her surprise, Orochimaru. Orochimaru hasn't been seen in weeks, hardly stepping out in public since Tsunade left the village. It was seldom enough that there had been rumors that he had left with her, spending his time trying to keep her from blowing all her money gambling.

A now familiar feeling of overwhelming fear knots her stomach and makes her take a step away from the scene before her.

How was she going to talk to the Hokage now? She remembers the stories of the Gold and Silver Brothers now. Years ago, before she was born, they been swallowed by the Nine-Tails Fox, but survived by eating the kyuubi's flesh. The stories said they had absorbed part of the kyuubi's power, but they'd never said anything about _this_.

Mikoto swallows hard.

They would kill her before she got anywhere near the Hokage. Then Saki and her family and all the people who could still be saved might be lost forever if the Hokage didn't make the decision to send the medic-nin to them. Even if Mikoto could find them, they wouldn't prioritize those lives until the Hokage told them to.

And Kushina would be lost. Every second that Mikoto wasted not telling him about the kidnapping, Kushina was getting further away.

_Kushina,_ Mikoto thinks despairingly. Her stomach clenches painfully. _Please, Kushina, please be okay._ She couldn't even begin to process the idea of losing Kushina. It was like her mind refused to believe that it could really be possible.

A hand lands on her shoulder. Too hypersensitive from the events of the day, Mikoto draws the short sword at her side and swiftly spins to slash at the person behind her.

Luckily, Minato is fast enough to jump out of the way of her blade.

Had he lost his _mind? _Minato had been out of the Academy for almost as long than Mikoto had been in it, but he couldn't have forgotten one of the first rules Honda-sensei taught them - 'don't surprise your ninja friend.'

"Sorry!" Minato yelps, "I called your name, but you didn't seem to hear. That was close, Mikoto! You're good."

Mikoto stares at him, torn between irritation at herself for her lack of awareness and annoyance at him for underestimating her. She hadn't spent the last three years on an extended trip with one of the Sannin, but she still had her own training and her own now slightly bruised pride as a shinobi.

She ignores both feelings in favor of blurting out, "Chiyo the Puppet Master and Sasori of the Red Sand attacked the Uchiha complex. I need to tell the Hokage to send medics that way because there are a lot of people that might not be dead yet that could be saved, and also the Hokage needs to know that Kushina has been kidnapped by shinobi from Kumogakure."

Minato's eyes sharpen. Mikoto can practically _see _him connecting several dots together, processing them, and then making his decision, all within a second.

"Is there anything else important that he needs to know?"

Mikoto doesn't know how Minato is going to talk to him, but she is desperate. "There's a civilian at my house who's been poisoned, but when I left, she was still alive. Mother said that a Honda Teruo might be able to save her, but-" She shuts her mouth so hard that her teeth clack together. Now is not the time for non-essential information.

Minato looks at her, a look of compassion that looks too old to be on his face. "Wait here," is all he says though, and then he literally disappears.

Bewildered, Mikoto looks around a little wildly and gapes when she sees Minato by the Hokage, nimbly moving in concert with the older man and easily avoiding any attacks that come his way, his reflexes so quick and spot-on that Mikoto thinks, for a moment, he must be able to see the future.

Irreverently, Mikoto makes the connection that whatever he just did must have been how he got away from Kushina all those years ago.

Envy crawls unpleasantly up her spine. For all that his casual arrogance sets her teeth on edge, it is obvious that Minato has the ability to back it up. Even if she had spent twice the amount of time and energy training until now, she still couldn't match Minato's raw potential and instincts. If it had been him at her house today, maybe that senbon would have never gotten near Saki.

Mikoto grits her teeth and shoves that thought aside with tremendous effort. This is no time to be dwelling on things when there are still other things that require her attention. She refocuses on the scene before her.

From where she is standing, Mikoto can see Minato talking rapidly. She can't see what he is saying though, because the movement of one of the beast's tails keeps obscuring him from her line of sight.

The Hokage, who she_ can_ see, doesn't respond, but to be fair, he is rather busy. From a little farther away, Jiraiya shouts something at Minato and the Hokage, looking exasperated. She can't hear what they're saying, but at least she can see his face clearly and Mikoto can read his lips.

She frowns in surprise, pretty sure Jiraiya just said, 'Just let my idiot student go, he's going to go anyway, this stupid half-brained pain in the ass can't see someone in trouble without throwing himself into the middle of it.'

Then the six-tailed beast that Jiraiya and Orochimaru are facing changes its attacking position in such a way that Mikoto can't see Jiraiya at all, though it seems like he's still talking to Minato.

Then the Hokage says something, turning so that Mikoto can't quite see what he's saying, but medic-nin hovering in the vicinity nods and then takes off towards the Uchiha complex. A small crowd of people wearing the medic-nin uniform join him, moving rapidly. Leading the way is a man who looks strikingly like Honda-sensei.

Mikoto lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She has done what she can for the people who might still be saved. She tightens her fists against the small hope that Saki will be one of them - she can't afford to be thinking about that right now.

Minato reappears suddenly by Mikoto's side. "Come on, Mikoto," he says shortly, "We'll just be in their way if we stay here." He starts running, his pace brisk but slow enough for Mikoto to follow without getting completely left behind. He looks determined and focused, and Mikoto automatically matches this, her mindset shifting to something more streamlined and mission focused. It helps a little to keep the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy at bay.

"Where are we going?" Mikoto asks.

"Jiraiya says that a beagle showed up, saying that it and its comrade were tracking some foreign ninja, and then your grandfather headed off in this direction with it and another Uchiha," Minato says grimly.

Mikoto stays silent, hiding her surprise. Shippou? Why would Ayame's summon go to Kagami-ojiisama? The other Uchiha is probably Hideki-sama, Manae-sama's younger brother and Kagami-ojiisama's right hand man. Kagami-ojiisama probably called for him the moment he'd left the house.

"The Hokage was going to send reinforcements, but then Kinkaku and Ginkaku attacked and most of the jounin and chuunin still in the village had to go take the children and civilians to the evacuation centers," Minato adds, "A lot of them didn't show up - he didn't know about Sasori and Chiyo until I told him - so I asked him to send me instead."

"And you're going after Kagami-ojiisama to assist with retrieving Kushina?" Mikoto asks for confirmation.

"Yes, the Hokage has made it clear that the rescue of Uzushiogakure's good-faith representative is a priority," Minato says. He doesn't slow down.

Mikoto frowns. "By yourself?"

Minato looks at her out of the corner of his eye, slowing down a little to match her pace. Determinedly, Mikoto forces herself to keep going at the same speed, not letting herself slow down just because Minato is no longer ahead of her to catch up to.

"You're coming, aren't you?" Minato asks, sounding genuinely confused by her line of questioning. "I just figured, because she's your friend, and the Hokage said I should take whoever I thought was appropriate to bring her back."

Mikoto squints at him suspiciously, unsure if he is serious and whether or not she should be flattered. "Of course I am," she mutters, but her mind is going a mile a minute.

Since the end of the war, jounin and chuunin have been out of the village almost constantly on missions. That, on top of having lost a number of good shinobi in the war, has left the number of available ninja left regularly in Konoha somewhat limited.

Obviously all the available jounin and chuunin are otherwise occupied (her mind skitters around _or __incapacitated_), and Minato is unquestionably very skilled. However, it is clear that she doesn't know what he is capable of and vise versa - and regardless, it is beyond ridiculous to go into an unknown situation without more backup.

As much as she trusts Minato, she is not willing to let Kushina's safe recovery hang solely on the two of them when there is a chance that there might be other people who could be instrumental in getting her back. Especially since she already knows a few people who she would trust to have her back. Mikoto just hopes that they haven't already been escorted out and to the evacuation shelters.

"Minato, wait, we should find at least a couple extra people to come with us," Mikoto says, slowing down.

Minato frowns, clearly impatient, but he slows down obligingly and says, "Who?"

Relieved that he is willing to listen to her, Mikoto says, "Come with me." This time, it is her who takes off with Minato following her.

Mikoto makes a beeline towards the Nara lands nearby, hoping that Shikaku is there doing what he always does before lessons: napping.


	14. Chapter 14

in this chapter, you get to see some of my version of minato! this and the next chapter are rather long. i find that there's a general increase of the length of chapters, actually... let me know if that's a problem and i'll try to cut down a little!

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><p>They luck out - not only is Shikaku at home, but apparently he was hosting some sort of intervention that Mikoto had not been invited to and her entire graduating class, minus Hiashi and Fugaku as usual, is hanging out in front of his house. After passing through the part of the Nara Forest that leads to the main house, Mikoto and Minato find Inoichi and Hizashi on the verge of exchanging blow.<p>

Shikaku, Chouza, and Shikuro stand in a loose circle around them. Shikaku looks positively done with the both of them, his eyebrows drawn together in irritation, but Chouza has his hands up and is obviously trying to talk them down. Shikuro stands slightly off to the side, his arms crossed. His eyes are covered as usual, but his mouth is set in an unhappy line.

"What are you _doing_," Mikoto asks, appalled. She knows that Inoichi and Hizashi have never really gotten along; Inoichi has always been somewhat sensitive about his mother being a civilian and Hizashi has always been dismissive towards him, cold, and sneeringly off-putting with his obvious pride in his pedigree, but she can't believe any of them thought_this _was the way to solve the problem. Whatever _this _is.

It doesn't really bother or surprise her that they have left her out again - they had always done so when they were little, and then it didn't matter so much because she had Kushina. However, she finds herself feeling even more impatient with their pettiness today, though she knows it is unfair. It isn't as if they had known, or would know even now, that this was going to be one of the worst days of Mikoto's life.

They _should _know about the attack on the village though, and that is enough of an excuse for her to lose her temper. "Never mind!" she snaps when Inoichi opens his mouth to defend himself. "I don't _care _what stupid thing you idiots were doing, I need you all to remember that you're ninja and help me find Kushina! She's been kidnapped, and there's no one else to go after her." She turns to Shikaku. "Shikaku, you're the best in our class at strategy. I need you to come with us at least."

Predictably, Shikaku says, alarmed, "None of us have ever been on a real mission before."

Stubbornly, Mikoto says, "We've all been on D-ranked missions-"

"This is different from chasing that stupid cat all the time!" Shikaku huffs, interrupting her. Surprised, Mikoto loses her steam. Shikaku must have really been on edge already to actually start arguing with her. "This is a C-ranked mission _at least, _and none of us even have a jounin-sensei yet!"

"I know, Shikaku!" Mikoto snaps. "But there's just us, and I can't just let Kushina go without at least trying to rescue her!" She throws her hands out imploringly, looking around at all the boys. "_Please, _help me! Don't tell me that you're the kind of shinobi that can let a comrade go without a fight! Kushina grew up with us, trained with us, chased that poor cat down with us! She's a proud shinobi of Konoha, and she would never leave one of you behind. Don't you think that you should do the same for her?"

There is a short silence during which all of them avoid her eyes and Mikoto's heart drops down into her stomach.

"I'll go," Hizashi says quietly. He comes over to stand by her.

Swallowing her shock and making sure it doesn't appear on her face, she nods gratefully at him. On her other side, Minato looks over her head at Hizashi, who does a double take.

"Me too," Inoichi seethes, and marches over to glare down at Mikoto. It is a weirdly familiar interaction, and it has become much more tolerable since he learned to leave Mikoto her personal space.

Chouza nods. "Me too. Kushina's a good person, and it would be shameful of me to abandon her in her time of need."

Shikuro adds quietly, "Myself as well. Kushina has always been kind to me, and she is the only one among you who actually likes my bugs. I count her, perhaps indulgently, as one of my friends."

Mikoto had not known that, but she is grateful all the same. She smiles at them.

Shikaku sighs. "Fine," he says loudly, "Tell me what you can."

Mikoto quickly updates them all on the situation, glossing over the attack on her home - it is better for her not to dwell on that too much, she needs to keep her concentration on Kushina - and what is happening in the central part of the village and concentrates on explaining the mission itself.

"We're backup and possible retrieval," Inoichi summarizes.

Shikaku nods, looking thoughtful. "Alright, in that case we can probably assume that your grandfather and his man, as the first and main pursuing team will bear the brunt of the kidnapper's attacks. Still, we don't know how strong they are so it'll be good to be prepared. We'll act as though we could be ambushed at anytime."

"I'll lead the way," Minato speaks up finally. "I'm good at tracking and I'm the only one who knows which way the kidnappers were supposedly headed. And I'm fast and discreet - I can scout ahead, report what I find." Mikoto suppresses her frown at this. It's logical, but it also sounds suspiciously like he is purposefully is putting himself in a position where he won't be encumbered by the rest of them.

"Alright," Shikaku says though, nodding and automatically taking charge. Mikoto tries not to smirk a little - even though Shikaku complains, he is a natural leader, and he is _smart _no matter how he tries to hide it by acting lazy and distracted. He also hates it when he has to take orders from other people that he disagrees with, and seems to preemptively step up even though he complains about it later. Whenever their strategy and tactics teacher, Morino Kiyoshi pits them against each other in mock-war battles, Shikaku's team always wins.

"That sounds like a good idea. You're probably way more powerful than the rest of us too, so I'll just count on you to be our front line of defense as well. Don't get yourself killed though. You just got back, Minato, I don't think I could show my face around here if I got Konoha's best and brightest killed as soon as he got back."

"Welcome back, by the way," Chouza puts in cheerfully. All the other boys mutter something that sounds similar.

"Thanks," Minato says, blinking.

Shikaku moves on quickly, "So then it'll be me and Inoichi as a pair - then I have a better sense of what's happening and I can direct and change tactics as necessary. Also, we're better fighting together anyhow, and Inoichi is good at thinking on his feet." Inoichi flushes at the praise. "I'll watch front left and he'll watch front right. Hizashi, your Byakugan can see in all directions, correct? How far?"

"60 meters," Hizashi says.

"Hm," Shikaku says, "Well, you're the fastest among us and then you can watch all our backs, so I'll put you in the middle as assist and support if anyone gets close enough to attack close range. Chouza and Shikuro, your attacks take a little time but are highly effective. You'll be our strikers. If someone ambushes us while Hizashi's occupied, Inoichi and I will create openings and you take them out. Shikuro, you should also monitor the right and Chouza, the left. Mikoto, you're smart and you've got good instincts. You'll bring up the rear. Watch our backs and if someone comes up behind us, take them out with that sword of yours."

He makes a face - during their regularly scheduled sparring (also with Kiyoshi-sensei), Mikoto has gotten close enough to _nearly_ stab him once or twice. She can never quite out-think him and his various contingency plans, but it is still fairly gratifying to have gotten close. Shikaku, bizarrely enough, doesn't seem to hold it against her, but has a tendency to regard her sword with a lot of distaste.

"Got that?" Shikaku asks, frowning at them all.

They all make affirmative noises, and then he starts rustling through their equipment. All of them are armed and equipped already though. Inuzuka Yoshiro, one of their various temporary jounin-sensei who lovingly calls his classes with them 'The Art of Running Away', has recently begun to drop in on them without warning and then pursue them relentlessly throughout the village. Whoever makes it the longest gets left out of the next round of this and they get extra points if they actually get a shot in. They have all learned to just be prepared for this all the time._  
><em>

"Okay, let's go get these assholes and bring Kushina back then, ideally without dying," Shikaku says, rousing a small cheer among them all, and then he nods at Minato to lead the way.

With the seven of them, they are moving much more slowly than when it had been just Minato and Mikoto, but they are still all moving at a pretty brisk pace. They jump through the trees quickly, a skill beat into them by Yoshiro-sensei's first few lessons.

The experience of traveling as a team with an objective is much different than when Mikoto had been sprinting through the village. Now, Mikoto feels hyper-aware of the fact that she's got teammates who are relying on her to have their backs. She feels like she has entered a whole new level of vigilance, perceiving everything around her with a sense of clarity that she has never had during their practice ambushes on each other or on Shijimi-dono's beloved Tora-chan. The stakes this time feel entirely different.

She breathes out carefully, her eyes still scanning their surroundings as she rides out another welling of emotion. This time it is an incredible feeling of gratitude for her teammates for standing by her side.

"Mikoto," Shikuro says abruptly, "Minato found something. Friend, not foe."

It turns out to be Kagami-ojiisama, Hideki-sama, and Shippou taking a breather. Kagami-ojiisama grimaces at them when all seven of them appear before him. "That our backup is you bunch tells me nothing good. No offense."

"None taken," Shikaku says wryly. He crosses his arms and then adds, "I can't say for certain how it is, but Mikoto made it sound really bad and considering the fact she almost always makes things sound better than they are, I can't say I have high hopes for the state of our village when we get back."

Mikoto spares a moment to be surprised by this assessment of herself. She hadn't realized she did that, though she supposes she has a tendency to pad the truth a little sometimes. Maybe her unconscious attempt to balance Kushina, who has a tendency to hit straight on with brutal honesty all the time.

Kagami-ojiisama's eyes narrow immediately though and shift to Mikoto. Without prompting, Mikoto succinctly reports what she knows of the events of the day again.

Hideki-sama's brow furrows as she talks, but whatever he is thinking he doesn't say out loud.

"The Hokage and his students will take care of the Gold and Silver Brothers easily," Kagami-ojiisama says calmly. "They didn't come by their reputations lightly, you know. There's a reason why the Sandaime is considered the most powerful of all the Hokage so far, and even with Tsunade gone, the remaining two of the Sannin are more than a match for even such infamous ninja. The village will survive this, as it has survived attacks like this before."

Shippou lets out a soft whine, and moves through the genin boys to sniff at Mikoto's knee. Mikoto kneels down to give her some attention, scratching the beagle behind the ear the way she likes it. Shippou noses at her cheeks, her nose leaving wet marks behind that Mikoto rubs away.

"Shippou," Kagami-ojiisama snaps suddenly. Startled, Mikoto's hands still and she looks at her grandfather in blatant surprise. She has never heard him use such a harsh tone before.

The beagle sniffs and looks at him balefully. Then she says, "Rakku's coming."

A small tuft of fur lands on Chouza's head. Shikaku and Hizashi adopt the same exact look of being severely underwhelmed when Chouza reaches up and carefully lowers it down to reveal a small pomeranian, panting hard. Inoichi leans in closer disbelievingly. Shikuro doesn't react visibly at all, but Minato lets out a small gasp and says, "She's so _cute_."

"He," Mikoto and Shippou correct at the same time.

Rakku sticks his nose up in the air indignantly, eyeing Minato disdain. "The _nerve_," he mutters, then sobers up. "I was following two shinobi and the girl. She was putting up quite the fight and managed to slow them down for a while, but they joined with three other Kumo-nin and she's been pretty quiet since then. Then they split up into two groups, probably to throw pursuers off track. I don't know how they did it, but I saw and smelled the girl on both of them. How do you want to proceed, grandpa?"

Kagami-ojiisama frowns. "Take me to the place where they split." To the genin, he says sternly, "Follow, but cautiously. Stay back until I give the signal for all clear."

They do as he says, silently falling back into the same positions they had been traveling in earlier, except now with Hideki-sama tailing Mikoto. Shippou also stays by her side, though Rakku is darting out in the very front with Kagami-ojiisama following right behind him.

Shikaku makes the signal for everyone to spread out, and the genin disperse quickly so that they are not all clustered together into one easily targeted group. Minato has already gone ahead, running side by side with Kagami-ojiisama.

Hideki-sama stays pretty close to Mikoto. "Mikoto-san, it seems you have had a very trying day," he murmurs to her when they fall into step, "but your actions have done credit to the Uchiha name."

Perplexed, Mikoto acknowledges his compliment with a nod and notes his deliberate use of honorifics that he, as part of the main family and Manae-sama's brother no less, has no reason to adhere to. "Thank you, Hideki-sama."

Mysteriously, Hideki-sama adds, "Your grandfather is a great man. He has a strong heart. He must, to have endured so much loss of people very dear to his heart. His wife, your grandmother, as well as both his sons..."

Mikoto supposes he is talking about her own father, and about her aunt and uncle who died before she was even born. She doesn't know how to respond, so she doesn't, simply dropping down to crouch behind a bush when she sees Shikuro's relayed signal to stop and hide. Shippou drops down with her, laying very still though Mikoto can feel the tension in the beagle's body where it is pressed against her leg. Hideki doesn't come down with her, instead disappearing in his own way among the leaves above.

Time crawls as she waits for the all clear signal.

When it comes, only a few minutes later, her left leg is a little numb. She shakes it out before moving forward, following the familiar slip of Shikuro's shadow with Shippou following at her heels.

She is the last to join everyone.

Minato is arguing with her grandfather, his voice low but color is rising high in his cheeks, betraying his strong emotions. He is brandishing something in his fist, something red and awfully familiar. Mikoto's eyes widen when she realizes it is a lock of Kushina's hair. It looks like Kushina tried to tie it together, but several stands still went missing.

"It makes no _sense _for them to leave her hair," Minato is saying furiously.

Kagami-ojiisama is frowning down at him, his arms crossed. "Unless they're trying to throw us off the right trail. It's better if they leave the girl with more people to protect her."

"Unless that's what they hope we'll think," Minato insists, "And it's not applicable if they've decided to value speed instead of relying on their strength to get Kushina out of Fire Country."

Rakku jumps in with, "I can smell spit on the hair. The girl might have tried to use that to weigh the hair down so it wouldn't fly too far."

"That's definitely not something the enemy ninja would do, especially if they were prioritizing speed," Minato says triumphantly. He lifts his chin stubbornly, not backing down, and Kagami-ojiisama looks like he's not about to give in either.

"We could split up," Hizashi points out. Shikaku's face shifts into something mildly resigned, like he knew that was coming but had hoped it wouldn't.

"That sounds like a good idea," Mikoto starts to say, but barely gets two words out before her grandfather interrupts.

"_No_," he snaps.

Mikoto looks at him wide-eyed. He has _never _used that kind of tone with her before.

"What if-" Minato tries, but Kagami-ojiisama actually snarls at him._  
><em>

"I said _no_," her grandfather insists.

Shippou, at her side, rears up on her hind legs and snaps her teeth impatiently at him. "Kagami, you know it's the only option," she says, glaring up at him when she falls back down onto all fours. "Don't let Ayame's sacrifice be in vain."

"Shippou!" Kagami-ojiisama cries out.

"W-what," Mikoto stutters, her mind refusing to accept the logical conclusion that Shippou's words lead to, "What does Ayame have to..." She can't even finish her sentence, her mind reluctantly reminding her of all the clues that she hadn't understood before.

Ayame's summons going to Kagami-ojiisama, but not leading them to her. Hideki-sama's strange words while following Rakku's trail. Shippou's uncharacteristic attachment to her side, the way the beagle had gone to her for comfort only for Kagami-ojiisama to keep her from saying for what.

There is a pause so thick that Mikoto can practically feel it. The world feels like it is closing in on her.

"I'm so sorry, Mikoto," Shikaku says quietly, breaking the silence.

Mikoto finds herself staring at him and his stupid spiky hair and his stupid grumpy face, which, for once, is soft and sympathetic. He keeps looking back at her, even as her vision blurs and he becomes nothing more than a misshapen outline of a boy, but she clings to her image of him like it is the only thing that will keep her from crumbling to pieces.

"Shikaku," she says, but her voice wavers. Mikoto clears her throat and tries again. "Shikaku, what do you think of splitting up?"

Shikaku looks around their group before meeting her eyes again and saying, "Theoretically, it's our best bet for catching up with Kushina. Plus, it increases our chances of finding the real Kushina from fifty percent to approximately one hundred."

"Thank you," Mikoto says. She finally drags her eyes away from him and looks around the group, finally locking gazes with Kagami-ojiisama. "Failure is not an option, and I like the odds of one hundred percent better than fifty. I won't let Kushina be taken by Kumo. We'll split up."

Her grandfather closes his eyes and turns his face away from her. Mikoto crushes an inexplicable sense of disappointment at his reaction. For good measure, she also boxes up her grief tightly to be reexamined at a later time.

Right now she has a mission to complete. She has to save Kushina.

"I can go alone," Minato offers immediately into the lull of voices. "I'm fast and I've handled Kumo-nin myself before. Rakku said that it was probably just one person with Kushina, and I can handle one Kumo-nin without further risk to-"

Fed up with him, Mikoto whirls around and punches him in the face. For all that she channeled Kushina for it, Mikoto knows that her blow doesn't pack nearly as much power as her friend's, but Minato still staggers back, eyes wide.

Perhaps simply because of the cold fury in Mikoto's eyes. "Don't you _ever _patronize us again," she snarls. "We may not all be prodigies or have trained with Jiraiya of the Sannin_,_ but all of us are shinobi of Konohagakure and we can carry out our duty as such. You will _not _go alone, because it is SOP to move in teams of at least three for missions."

"But-" Minato starts, flushing angrily.

Mikoto talks right over him. "Didn't you want to be Hokage? How can you be Hokage if you can't trust in our strength?" she asks furiously, "The Hokage is not just a powerful shinobi, he's a _leader _who has to rely on the strength of other shinobi in the village." She turns away from him, relieved when he doesn't speak up again. "Shikaku, who do you suggest to go with him?"

"You and Hizashi, you're the fastest," he answers promptly, and then eyes the adults warily. "I don't know much about either of your abilities..."

Kagami-ojiisama can't even look Mikoto in the eyes anymore, but he still says, "Hideki-san, if you would-"

Hideki-sama nods. "Understood," he says before Kagami-ojiisama is even finished speaking.

"I'm going with Mikoto," Shippou puts in firmly.

"Fine, but we're going now," Mikoto says definitively, impatient to get going.

Minato, without speaking, turns and starts off without them. Mikoto feels a stab of regret for her loss of temper, but it is too late for that now. With a round of nods, they split into two groups, Mikoto, Shippou, Hizashi, and Hideki-sama following Minato while the others move in another direction with Rakku and Kagami-ojiisama.

It is getting dark, and every moment Kushina's kidnappers are taking her closer to the edge of Fire Country. They must hurry.


	15. Chapter 15

fyi i saved this chapter as 'gdmt save kushina already.' i thought that was important for you to know. i have to say, i did not expect to have to write so much fighting. this chapter should be the last of the action for a while though, at least. finally!

warning for graphic violence and death. stabbings! all things i have never felt inclined to write before. it's very unsettling.

* * *

><p>Minato leads the way, scouting out in front of everyone else. They are all moving very quickly, but apparently not quickly enough for him. Hideki-sama is bringing up the back, with Mikoto and Shippou in front of him and Hizashi at the very front of their group.<p>

Minato returns periodically with perfunctory updates on his tracking progress. He never looks Mikoto directly in the eyes during these brief reports though, instead letting his gaze sweep generally over all over them.

"This way," he'll say, pointing in a direction, and then disappear.

Eventually comes, "They're getting sloppy, which means we're getting close."

And then, with the faintest hint of reluctance, "There might be two Kumo-nin with her. No more than that though." He's gone again before they can so much as acknowledge his words.

Mikoto recognizes, with the resignation of an old friend who has overstepped their bounds, that he is in a bit of a snit. She would apologize if he would stay still long enough for that.

Hideki-sama says, sounding wryly amused, "I didn't expect to reach the stage of my career as a ninja where I found myself taking orders from children so soon."

Mikoto glances over at Hizashi at those words and sees that he doesn't find those words particularly funny either. They have got a little too much truth in them to be. In a ninja village, adults are always dying too early and leaving children to take their place.

"You're still young, Hideki-sama," Mikoto says. He is still in his thirties, she believes.

Hideki-sama groans, making a comically exaggerated face of horror. It is not the time to laugh, but Mikoto is surprised to find herself smiling a little at his reaction. It is so unlike the stoic man who is always following her grandfather around or accompanying Manae-sama and Fugaku around the Uchiha complex.

"It was a joke," he says with a sigh. "I appreciate your words, Mikoto-san, but I think you made me feel worse. Aren't you only ten?"_  
><em>

"Twelve," Mikoto replies.

"Right," Hideki-sama says with a grimace, "I feel much better now."

Minato flashes into view in front of them. He looks alarmed, which automatically puts Mikoto on her guard even before she notices the singes on his clothing. It looks like he got too close to an explosive tag that went off.

She draws her short sword. Hizashi's arms come up quickly to defend himself, just before a man jumps right in front of him. It's a feint; when Hizashi moves to attack using his distinctive Gentle Fist style, the man reveals that his target is not the Hyuuga when he smoothly ducks beneath Hizashi's hands and uses his forward movement to propel himself at Mikoto.

She sees the glint of his knife just before she uses her chakra to stick to the next branch her foot lands on instead of launching off again. Her momentum sends her careening in a ridiculous forward spin with the branch as a fulcrum.

The branch is too flimsy for her weight. It breaks, sending her plunging through the air. Mikoto spins in the air so that she can land on her feet, suddenly grateful for all the times Yoshiro-sensei drilled them on landing on their feet by literally throwing or knocking them off ledges at the most inopportune times. At the time, she and Kushina had made very serious plans to overthrow his reign of terror, but now she thinks she should probably apologize and maybe send a gift basket. If she survives this, at least.

She hits the ground hard, sliding back a few feet. Mikoto ends up having to use one hand on the ground to keep herself on her feet, but she makes sure to keep the hand holding her short sword up in the air.

It pays off. Mikoto swings her short sword up just in time to block the long, slim knife that comes arcing down over her head.

"Huh," the man says, his frosty blue eyes narrowing dangerously at her. "I thought you were the weak one."

Mikoto grits her teeth with the effort of holding him back. His knife is smaller than her sword, but it is obviously very well made and he has the advantage of being bigger and stronger. Her arm shakes dangerously with effort, and she brings her other arm up to as additional support in holding up her sword.

The man does the same, bearing down with his full weight on her. Mikoto's knee slams down into the ground into twigs and rock unearthed from her skid across the forest floor. Bright bursts of pain making her gasp out, but she doesn't dare to let up on her block.

The enemy-nin grins fiercely at her show of weakness.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a familiar flash of white and red. To distract the man, she bites out in response to his last words, "I. _Am_."

The Kumo-nin looks puzzled for a moment before Hideki-sama tackles him off of her. Mikoto gasps out a sound of relief, falling forward a little after being released from her stand-off with the Kumo-nin. Her knee is throbbing and doesn't quite hold up her weight when she stands up. When she looks down, it is bleeding mess.

"_Go, _Mikoto!" Hideki-sama shouts, finally dropping the formality in favor of concentrating on the Kumo-nin who turns his attention to him instead. "I can handle him! Go to Minato and Hizashi!"

Mikoto swallows and runs, only jumping up into the trees again when she feels that her knee is up to the strain. She grits her teeth through the pain.

Within seconds, Shippou is at her side again.

"This way, Mikoto," the beagle says shortly, and Mikoto follows her without a word.

Shippou leads Mikoto past where she was attacked by the man to a clearing located near the edge of a cliff that drops down several hundred feet. Just looking in the direction of the drop makes Mikoto uncomfortable, but she forces herself to scan the area.

Only about fifty meters from the edge, Hizashi and Minato are facing off against a woman wearing a hitai-ate with Kumogakure's symbol engraved into it. One of Hizashi's arms hangs limply at his side, bound with some sort of makeshift split. His face looks grey, but he seems to be holding up pretty well, coordinating with Minato's fast attacks to strike blows at the woman's tenketsu.

Closer to the treeline, another Minato, likely a shadow clone, stands guard over Kushina. Kushina is propped up against a tree, unconscious.

Mikoto sheathes her sword, but doesn't let go of it entirely. She drops down with Shippou a few feet away from Minato, and says suspiciously, "What is the capital of the Land of Clouds?"

After a moment of surprise, Minato answers promptly with, "Rainbow Unicorn Palace." He makes a face. "We made that up when we were four_._"

Mikoto had been obsessed with coming up with safe words at the time. Her father hadn't come back from his mission and she had somehow gotten into her head that she needed to be hyper vigilant in case of... something, Mikoto can't remember now.

She had driven everyone around her nearly to the brink by making new ones up constantly and then testing everyone on them all the time. She had only calmed down when her mother had pointed out that safe words were potentially less secure if she was using them _all _the time.

"Well, you remembered it, didn't you?" she asks, oddly touched by that.

The corner of his mouth quirks up, then the small flash of humor drops away. "Your knee," he says.

"It's nothing, just a shallow wound," Mikoto says dismissively, and moves around him to check on Kushina, who is worryingly still.

Mikoto checks her pulse. To her relief, Kushina's heartbeat is strong, even though Kushina does little more than mumble incoherently and flop around sluggishly when Mikoto shakes her shoulders.

Shippou puts her nose close to Kushina's face and says, "She smells strange, like drugs."

"I think she was sedated," Minato says. "The woman had a couple syringes that she tried to use on me and Hizashi, but I crushed them before she could."

Mikoto turns around to see him watching Hizashi and... well, himself fighting the woman still. The Kumo-nin's movements lag considerably, always _just_ barely defending herself from Minato's quick attacks. She is grimacing every time she moves, as if simply defending herself is an effort.

Judging from Mikoto's very limited experience with Hizashi's Gentle Fist style, it probably is. This fight is nearly over.

"I have a plan," Minato says to her even though his eyes are still on the battle, "But I need your help."

"Realized you can't do everything yourself, have we?" Mikoto inquires wryly, readjusting her hold on her sword and glancing over to check that the other Minato and Hizashi are still holding the woman at bay.

Minato smiles fleetingly. "I've always liked the way you never quite say, 'I told you so.'"

Mikoto pointedly doesn't say anything in response to that. "Tell me the plan."

"The priority is the safe rescue of Kushina," Minato says, sobering up. "However, I can't go too far from the real me without dissipating, and the village is outside of my range of motion. This battle is practically over, but it will still take some time and we don't know if there are others or if the others will come after us. It will be better for us to get back to Konoha as fast as possible."

Mikoto notes the confirmation that this Minato is a shadow clone. "I could carry her," she offers. "You could defend me-"

"I actually think it would be better the other way around," Minato says. He winces a little. "I realized I might be a little, ah, tunnel visioned. I'm so sorry, if I had realized earlier-"

Mikoto puts her hand up to stall him, shaking her head. Now is not the time for apologies or regret for mistakes. He managed to warn them in time, that is what is important.

"Right, sorry. You and um-" he gestures vaguely towards the dog sitting and watching them.

"Shippou," the beagle provides helpfully.

"-Shippou should set the pace and take point on getting me and Kushina back to Konoha safely. I'll let you know when I've hit my range, but by then we should be very close to Konoha and you should be safe enough bringing her into the village yourself."

Mikoto frowns at him. "If you get hit by a killing blow, you'll disappear."

Minato smiles. "That's why it should be you protecting me instead of vice-versa. I trust you to protect me. You need to practice for when I'm Hokage anyway, right?"

He is turning her words against her, and yet she can feel herself puffing up with pride and readying herself for the new parameters of the mission. It is a skill that Kushina has as well, an inexplicable charisma that inspires Mikoto to loyalty and determination to do her best.

It will be interesting to see how their rivalry develops in the future.

"Shippou," she says, focusing on the mission, "Lead the way. Minato, stay close to her - we'll move as a small, compact unit. Slowly though, and make sure to watch out for enemy-nin. I'll follow close behind."

Shippou nods. The beagle waits for Minato's clone to pick Kushina up. Mikoto takes the time to cast a minor genjutsu on them all to obscure their presence and hide most of the noise they'll be making by traveling closer together. It will be a drain on her limited chakra, but she can keep it up until they get back to Konoha.

Minato straightens up with Kushina in his arms and nods at them. Shippou takes off back in the direction that they had come from, Minato and Mikoto following after.

When they approach the area that Mikoto had left Hideki-sama, Mikoto feels uneasy when she doesn't see either of them anywhere. She whispers, "Stop. Something's wrong." She leads them to a particularly secluded part of a big tree closer to the ledge.

When they get there, Kushina finally stirs, blearily opening her eyes and looking up in confusion at Minato's face. She squints, her face contorting comically. "Minato?"

"Hi," Minato says. He looks at Mikoto in a panic.

Kushina frowns up at him. "You're not really here, you're off training in the mountains or something like a dork," she informs him, "I was kidnapped by Kumo-nin and they drugged me and now I'm hallucinating you. Go away, I'd rather have Mikoto in my subconscious."

Mikoto stifles a laugh. She's so relieved that Kushina is okay. Minato sends her an annoyed look for not helping him, but is distracted when Kushina starts shoving at his face.

"Stop that," Minato tells her, "I'm real. I was sent after you and your kidnappers, and I'm rescuing you right now. It's important for you to stay quiet."

Kushina stops struggling, but she narrows her eyes suspiciously at him. "How did you find me?"

Minato sighs. "Your hair. That was a good idea, Kushina. I'm sorry you had to resort to that though." He eyes the missing chunks of Kushina's hair.

Mikoto blinks at him. He's _sorry_? That's an odd thing to say.

Apparently thinking along the same lines, Kushina shrugs. "It's just hair. Nothing to feel sorry about." She smiles a little. "Maybe I should leave it like this. No one will call me 'tomato' with it like _this_." Her face falls suddenly. "They might come up with something even more stupid though."

Minato snorts softly. "Just ignore them," he tells them, "Your hair is beautiful."

Kushina and Mikoto stare at him. Shippou huffs out a little laugh.

Minato turns bright red. "It is," he says defiantly. "It's just the truth."

"...This is a strange dream," Kushina says finally. She squints around and sees Mikoto. Surprised, she opens her mouth to speak again.

Mikoto silently presses a finger to her mouth to indicate _be quiet_. Kushina's eyes widen, but she stays silent. She does turn big, extremely confused eyes back to Minato's face though. In the limited light, it's hard to say for sure, but Mikoto swears that Kushina is blushing.

Well, this is unexpected.

Mikoto has other things to think about though. "Shippou," she says softly, "Stay here with them, you'll be able to smell if I'm not the one heading towards you. Minato, put Kushina down, but be ready to run in case anybody but me or Hideki-sama comes back."

Shippou whines low. "You shouldn't go alone," she says.

Mikoto smiles tightly. "I'll just be scouting," she says. "I won't engage. If I find anything, I'll come back right away and we'll go around it. Okay?"

"Okay," Shippou says reluctantly, her ears going back unhappily.

Minato's clone frowns. "You're the one who told me off about doing things alone," he points out to her.

"You literally thought that you could do _everything _on your own," Mikoto points out. "This is slightly different - we've all got different roles. We have to make do with what we have. This is just another version of teamwork." She grimaces. "I would rather have some backup, but we can't leave Kushina alone and you'll be faster at running away. If you end up needing to run, just hide out until the real Minato makes his way back to Konoha."

Kushina clenches a fist. "I feel so _weak_..." she whispers, her face twisting in frustration.

"That's probably from the sedative," Minato says, and puts Kushina down, propping her up against the trunk of the tree. "Actually, I'm surprised you're already recovering so well from it." He crouches down next to her, ready to scoop her up again at a moment's notice.

Mikoto and Kushina exchange a glance over Minato's shoulder, but neither say anything about the kyuubi. Mikoto tries for a reassuring look, but Kushina's mouth just flattens out into a grim line.

"I'll be right back," Mikoto tells them.

"Mikoto, release your genjutsu and localize it to yourself," Minato says. "I'll put up my own genjutsu."

Mikoto nods and releases the genjutsu, quickly moving through the seals to reinstate it around herself. Minato, on the other hand, doesn't even bother with seals, simply sweeping his hand around them. A moment later, even though Mikoto _knows _they're there, she can feel the genjutsu subtly altering her perception and convincing her that no, she's not seeing two kids her age and a dog.

Show-off.

She turns, satisfied that Minato has the situation well in hand, and carefully makes her way to where she last saw Hideki-sama and the other Kumo-nin with her sword still in her hand.

When Mikoto arrives, she finds it disturbingly quiet. She peers around the tree she is using to conceal herself, frowning. She can't see or hear anything, but that could mean anything. Hideki-sama could be dead, but there's no body. Hideki-sama might have killed the Kumo-nin, but then headed back to find them, or captured the ninja and taken him back to the village.

No, judging from the little she knows of him, Mikoto thinks he would have tried to kill the enemy-nin as fast as he could and then gone after them to make sure they were alright and provide assistance.

Mikoto bites her lip and eliminates the possibilities to the two most important ones: either Hideki-sama is dead and there's still one enemy-nin unaccounted for, or they're still in the area and she has just walked into a lull of their fight.

If it is the latter, her presence here could seriously compromise whatever advantage Hideki-sama might have if the enemy-nin gets his hands on her. She decides quickly that the best course of action is to go back to where the others are hiding, let them know what she thinks is happening, and consult with Minato's clone about how to proceed from here.

Before she can do anything, Mikoto suddenly senses a wave of killing intent from behind her. Her breath freezes in her lungs and she turns around very slowly, as if that will do anything to protect her.

The Kumo-nin from before bares his teeth at her, hanging upside down from a branch above her. "Found you," he hisses, and drops down to her branch, swinging his knife wildly in her direction - and completely misses.

_He can't see me,_ she realizes. _The genjutsu_.

Mikoto doesn't move. She doesn't want to give away her position.

The Kumo-nin's eyes pass right over her. After failing to hit her the first time, he tries a couple more times and misses both times. The second time she actually has to dodge, bending her knees and curling down just in time for the knife to pass entirely over her head.

He grows bored and starts looking around. "I've figured it out, you know," he announces, apropos of nothing. Without any response, he spins the knife between his fingers and smirks. "Not that you made it hard to, with that symbol emblazoned all over your clothes - you and that pretty bird back in your village." He spits into the air. "_Uchiha_."_  
><em>

Mikoto's heart jumps up into her throat. She can feel her whole body trembling with emotion in response to his words.

At that moment, Hideki-sama drops down in front of her. "So, it was you who killed Ayame-san." He glances over at his shoulder, right at Mikoto. His eyes are red, with one whirling tomoe.

"Ayame," the Kumo-nin muses. "She was a good one. I left her a gift - one of my knives. I suspect she didn't have much time to enjoy it though, seeing as I left it in her throat."

Hideki-sama says, "As an Uchiha, it is only right for me to repay you for such a gift to my clanswoman. Perhaps you would appreciate the same present?"

The Kumo-nin spreads his arms in invitation. "I would _love _it," he says, smirking. "I just have something to give to the little mouse behind you first." He flashes out of sight the same way Minato does, and then reappears right in front of her, a knife in each hand.

Backed up against the trunk of the tree, Mikoto just barely manages to stop the knives with her short sword. She loses control of the genjutsu and drops it entirely before it can break and give her any mental backlash.

There's a boiling fury borne of grief crawling up her throat as she stares into the eyes of the man who killed Ayame.

She _hates _him. She's-

She's going to kill him.

A switch flips in her mind and she suddenly knows how she is going to do it. With a cry of fury, Mikoto twists her sword just so, and manages to rip the knives out of his hands.

Before she can feel triumphant, he whips out another thin blade and brings it down hard. Mikoto raises her arm to block it, but he's too close. She screams when it pierces through her forearm and the force of his blow makes her stagger backwards. He follows her as she stumbles, propelling himself and the knife at her with his own body weight.

She manages to manipulate it so it misses her heart, but the knife pierces through her shoulder. It tears through her muscles, and Mikoto feels the tears welling up despite herself.

The man smirks, too arrogant to pay attention to her arm coming up on the other side. "Got - _gngh._" He stumbles back, his hands coming up to his throat.

Mikoto stares dispassionately at the kunai buried in the side of his neck.

She missed his carotid.

Not that it matters, once Hideki-sama snaps his neck. Then, finally, the man drops dead and Hideki-sama lets him fall off the thick branch of the tree and fall through the air, landing on forest floor with a heavy _thump_.

Mikoto and Hideki-sama are left staring at each other.

Hideki-sama breaks the silence first. "You did well," he says. "You protected yourself and distracted him long enough for me to finally take him out."

"I meant to kill him," Mikoto says, numbly.

"Smart," Hideki-sama says, nodding. "Always aim to kill." The red of the Sharingan in his eyes fade away.

She swallows hard. And then, to her absolute horror, Mikoto begins to cry.

Once the tears sob, they immediately descend into wracking sobs that make her body throb with almost unbearable pain. Her favorite cousin is dead and many other besides, her best friend was kidnapped, and there is still a knife impaled through her forearm and shoulder but she's crying because she tried to kill a man who was trying to kill her.

Wordlessly, Hideki-sama pulls bandages out of the pocket of his uniform and begins bind her arm and shoulder around the knife methodically.

"He deserved it," Mikoto sobs, "He killed Ayame. He was going to kill me."

"Yes," Hideki-sama says. His hands, which just ended a man's life, are gentle as they try not to jostle the knife too much. Mikoto notices for the first time that the knife is serrated. That is probably why Hideki-sama is taking such great pains to bind her arm and shoulder so they won't move around too much, to avoid causing more harm.

"I shouldn't cry about trying to kill him," Mikoto insists. "I _shouldn't_."

Hideki-sama doesn't say anything to that at first while he finishes up bandaging her. It is not until after he has very carefully picked her up in his arms that he responds to that.

"No," Hideki-sama says sadly, "You shouldn't. You're a shinobi, Mikoto-san, this won't be the last time you will have to try to kill a man. And yet," he sighs heavily. "And yet, it should never be easy. Remember that, Mikoto-san."

"Okay," she says. "I need to - was it just him?"

"Yes," Hideki-sama replies.

"Okay," Mikoto says again. "We need to get Minato and Kushina."

She directs Hideki-sama over to where Kushina and Minato's clone are hiding. Hideki-sama moves very slowly, from his injuries and also maybe because of the knife in her arm. It's frustrating, but understandable.

Shippou barks furiously after Minato drops the genjutsu, and Kushina is saying, "Mikoto! Mikoto, _no_-"

Stunned, Minato says, "Your eyes-"

Hideki-sama is warm and the pain in her arm and shoulder has dulled to an insistent throb. Kushina is alive, awake, and she's on her feet now, running towards them. Presumably Minato and Hizashi will be finished and coming this way soon, and Mikoto has no doubt that Kagami-ojiisama and the rest of her former classmates will take care of the other enemy ninja.

Her job is done. Mikoto sighs heavily and lets her head drop to Hideki-sama's shoulder.

She blacks out.


	16. Chapter 16

another intermission because i wanted to get a better sense of the inner workings of the uchiha clan. a little of the history of setsuna's rebellion from manae-sama's pov, and also fugaku finally makes his reappearance in this story.

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><p><strong>intermission: crumbling pedestals<strong>

It takes about half a second for Manae to realize that, as usual, her timing is awful. She stares in horror at the unnatural smoke rising from Konoha. The moment Manae stepped out of Konoha's walls, a knot of worry had lodged itself in the pit of her stomach and refused to go away. Ironically, her concern now proved not unfounded, Manae finds herself frozen in place.

"Mother?" Fugaku inquires, frowning when she stops dead in her tracks on the road that leads them back to Konoha. He is dirty and a little bedraggled from the six days of constant training. Hotaru, at his side, looks about the same. Manae had really put the both of them through their paces, for all that the training trip had been mainly for Fugaku's benefit. Manae had shamelessly used her clan head authority to co-opt Hotaru from the Academy, with the excuse that it was only a week and she wasn't nearly as young as she should be to be training the clan heir.

She had been putting off this training trip for weeks. Training someone in using the Sharingan was already quite unsettling, and that it was her own son made it infinitely worse. The echoes of Setsuna in his features certainly didn't help either. Sometimes she would stand across from Fugaku on the training field, his eyes red and spinning with tomoe, and Manae would forget where she was for a second. Her memories would transport her to that bloody day of rebellion, facing Setsuna on a battlefield strewn with the blood of her own clan.

Manae had known that was going to happen. That was why she had brought Hotaru, who was uncannily perceptive, even when Manae preferred her not to be. When Fugaku stopped looking like _her _son, with her rounder eyes and flat nose, when all she could see of him was the harsh lines of Setsuna's face and the red of his eyes looking back at her, she stepped away. Hotaru would always step forward smoothly, as if they had planned it, and Fugaku could continue training and Manae could take a moment to collect herself.

Not that seeing Fugaku and Hotaru prepare to attack each other on the training field didn't come with its own emotional baggage for her. Manae used to always be relieved that Hotaru had turned out to resemble her brother and herself more than her father, but for the last six days it has been like seeing ghosts from a battlefield long past.

Manae would have put this trip off longer, except it had come to a point where Fugaku had improved so much that she had literally run out of excuses. The elders had already been badgering her for weeks about how she was being derelict in training the _true _clan heir to take his place when he finally came of age. Then they had started gossiping that she was holding him back on purpose, which had then sparked the usual rumors about how she was a power-hungry manipulative cow who had pushed her husband into betraying the village, only to betray him instead to take what wasn't rightfully hers: the position of clan head.

Truth be told, Manae didn't care what they were saying. She didn't even particularly mind that it somewhat undermined her authority as clan head. It wasn't as if she had _wanted _the role at any point. The whole point of going to the Nidaime had been to expose the problems within the Uchiha clan with the vague hope that the Hokage, a powerful authority that existed outside of the clan, could maybe bring about a change within the clan, not simply reestablish the same exact system with herself at the top.

The Nidaime had promised to help her reform the clan before he went and died, leaving Hiruzen in his place. That had been quite a blow. Manae had been counting on the Nidaime's support and his counsel. She had only agreed with his decision to instate her as the clan head in the aftermath of Setsuna's rebellion with the understanding that it would be temporary.

It wasn't that Hiruzen hadn't wanted to help, but he had so much on his mind already. He had really struggled to find his footing as the first Hokage who wasn't a Senju without the Shodaime or the Nidaime to advise him, and it hadn't really helped that his appointment as Hokage had essentially been a field promotion. Hiruzen promised to help, but there had been a war going on after all.

So Manae had taken up the mantle of clan head and Head of the Police Force to support the village, telling herself that she should prioritize the safety of the village and on lending support to end the war quickly. Then the end of the war was in sight and somehow Fugaku was about to graduate from the Academy and Manae had realized too late that she hadn't done any of the things she had meant to do to change the clan before he inherited it.

She had tried at least, though it was probably a case of too little too late. Manae finally did what she had always meant to do and put Kagami-sama in charge of the Police Force, which meant power within the clan was now more decentralized. She had a system for switching up some of her advisers and attendants that gave almost everyone within the clan a chance to bend her ear, and she did her best to sometimes take the time to walk around the complex and greet people.

It wasn't just the inter-clan relationships she invested time in though. The one thing she _had _managed to do, namely open up the Police Force to non-Uchiha, served as a good basis for reaching out to the other clans and even the smaller shinobi families. For the last couple years, Manae had worked hard to visibly set an example to the rest of her clan by stubbornly working at building and maintaining relationships with the other clans.

She got the general sense that her fumbling attempts were appreciated, though Manae has this suspicion that all of them knew how unnaturally it came to her. She was hesitant, self-conscious, and plagued with the unshakable feeling that she had forgotten or misread something. She covered it mostly by trying to maintain a neutral facial expression all the time, but it felt like her fear of failure was scrawled across her forehead.

Quite frankly, if she would have known that all those years ago that accepting Setsuna's courtship would lead her here, she would have happily punched him like he deserved when he had walked up - no, _swaggered - _up to her with all the arrogance that his position afforded him and told her under no uncertain terms, "I am going to marry you." Instead, she had blinked at him and been somewhat flattered and impressed, though mostly amused, by his presumption.

Manae had not quite expected it, but it hadn't been out of the realm of possibilities for all that he was eight years her junior. There were rules, after all, to guard the purity of the Uchiha main family line, but also to avoid cousins marrying too closely. They also preferred to choose shinobi men and women who had already distinguished themselves as smart, powerful shinobi. At the time, Manae had been one of the few unattached single Uchiha women who fell into that narrow subset of age-appropriate choices to marry the youngest Uchiha heir.

She could have said no. She would have, but it turned out that Setsuna was actually rather sweet, sending her flowers and trying to read her favorite books. So, eventually she had caved and decided to marry him after all. Manae had needed to finally abandon her bitterness over Touya breaking her heart, but when she did and accepted Setsuna's official marriage proposal, she had felt all the better for it. She and Setsuna even managed to have a couple years of happiness together.

Not that it mattered now, anyway. Most of his immediate family had died early on in the second world war, leaving him to inherit the role of clan head that should have gone to his older brothers first if they hadn't been dead. He had grown angry and bitter and deeply suspicious, and then he had pursued his vengeance on Konoha for his perceived slights in the same single-minded manner that he had once pursued her. Then Manae had gone to the Nidaime, Setsuna had his rebellion, and a lot of people had died before the whole mess was over.

The unnatural sort of smoke rising from Konohagakure reminds her of that horrible, fateful day. She is not sure whether she wants to run _to _the village or away from it. If it is a repeat of the Setsuna Rebellion, she doesn't want to know. She is sickof it, of fighting members of her own clan, of the deep sense of dissatisfaction that seems to embedded into the consciousness of every Uchiha. Half of her clan hates her and the other half is pointedly neutral, and part of her recoils at the thought of _what if_. She despairs at the thought of all her bitterly negotiated fragile alliances with the other clans falling to pieces if the Uchiha have risen up again.

"Manae-sama, we should hurry," Hotaru says cautiously, breaking into her thoughts. The young woman has gone pale, but she stays deferential and polite. Manae can see from the way the younger woman's lips are pressed tightly together that it is taking Hotaru everything to keep from just bolting forward. Fugaku looks much the same, though his eyes are still trained on her face, waiting for her orders.

Manae shakes herself mentally. How selfish of her. She had entirely forgotten that she still has a responsibility to the next generation to do what she can, no matter how futile. If her brother were here, he would scold her for sinking into the past again.

"Yes," Manae says simply. She begins to run, Hotaru and Fugaku at her sides.

Less than five kilometers from the village, much to her surprise, she finds her brother walking out of the forest with a girl in his arms. Uchiha too, by the looks of it, though it could just be an illusion. She looks familiar, but Manae can't place her.

Hideki looks like hell. Unexpectedly, his eyes are also glowing red with the Sharingan.

Hideki had never activated the Sharingan. He has been lucky enough not to. Either this is a poor imposter of her dear brother, or something terrible has happened. Maybe both.

Manae stops, throwing an arm out to stall Hotaru and Fugaku.

"Hello, friend," she says neutrally.

"Hello, sister," Hideki says grimly back, "It is a fine day for a stroll, isn't it?"

It is really Hideki then. "Fine enough," she replies.

Hideki nods at the correct exchange of responses, then he staggers forward.

"Father!" Hotaru cries out, running to him. He catches himself, but allows Hotaru to take the girl from his arms.

"Mikoto," her son gasps. Fugaku shifts his weight like he wants to run to her, but thinks better of it.

Oh. Kagami-san's other granddaughter, the one in Fugaku's Academy class. Touya's niece.

Hideki grimaces and calls, "Minato-san, Kushina-san, come down. My clan members will escort us the rest of the way." A young blond boy jumps down from the trees to meet them on the road. A girl with distinctive red hair follows him, and immediately goes to Hotaru, checking on Touya's niece again. Manae realizes belatedly that she hadn't recognized the girl without her usual red-headed shadow at her side.

Kushina. The Uzushio girl, the jinchuuriki. What is she doing outside the village?

Manae looks at Hideki, who looks flatly back. He taps his left wrist twice for _capture._

She had been _captured?_

Only years of training herself not to react keeps Manae from sucking in her breath sharply. She knows he understands the implications of the girl, under Konoha's protection, under the Hokage's protection, and de facto under _their _protection being taken from the village means.

Her stomach roils.

Heads are going to have to roll, and she doesn't even know what the full extent of the damage to Konoha and consequently to the Uchiha reputation is going to be yet.

Manae is going to have to talk to the Hokage, even though she suspects already that she knows what he is going to say: the same thing that he told her when she had gone to him about reforming the Uchiha clan after Second Shinobi World War had finally been finished.

_During this precarious time of peace, we must provide the village with a sense of stability. The Uchiha clan and the Konoha Military Police Force are instrumental in that. If the other villages hear that one of our most powerful clans is showing signs of vulnerability - well, that is a risk that I will not take._

_I'm sorry, Manae._

There is a sour taste in her throat. If she is going to appease all the villagers and other clans, she is going to need something or _someone _to use to redirect the blame.

A scapegoat. Manae _despises _scapegoating.

She is distracted when a very familiar beagle jumps down after the two children. Fear spikes unpleasantly through Manae's mind when she recognizes the dog.

Without thinking, Manae says, "Shippou?" She looks around for Ayame, dread gathering in her heart.

Shippou says quietly, "She was the one who discovered the attempt to capture Kushina, Manae-sama. There were four Kumo-nin. She did her parents proud. She neutralized two of the threats and summoned myself and Rakku to ensure that the remaining two were followed when they took the girl."

The ground seems to disappear under Manae's feet. Dumbly, she says, "No."

Hideki only looks at her steadily.

_No. _Manae shakes her head in denial. She looks wildly around her as if that will make Ayame appear from behind the trees.

Fugaku looks bewildered by her reaction, as he should be. However, when Manae's eyes fall upon Hotaru, the young woman stares back at her, tears tracking down her face steadily.

Hotaru has always been far too perceptive. Manae had suspected when the girl had insisted on being the one to reach out initially to Kagami-san's family, but this just confirms it.

Too late. Far too late. Touya and Emiko's only child, dead. Emiko had used her last breath to ask for Manae's promise to watch over their little girl, and Manae had done so as repayment and apology for dragging both of them into a fight she should have left them out of.

Manae still feels guilty that Emiko had thought she needed to be clear about Ayame being Touya's daughter when she had elicited the promise. Emiko had once been Manae's friend too, before she had let her selfishness and bitterness come between them.

Ayame does not appear out of the trees, her face solemn as usual. Manae's heart sinks, the last of her desperate hope that this is a very inappropriate joke disappearing and leaving an empty unhappiness.

It had been easy enough to check in on the girl when she was a child. Fabricating excuses to check in on Touya's family after his death, sending Hideki and then Hotaru to the family with missives to Kagami-san or Ryuunosuke.

Manae had lost track of the girl a little in the last few years though. Hotaru had finally made the decision to devote her time to teaching at the Academy and Manae had her duties and Fugaku's training to look after. Manae had felt over-confident and comfortable in the knowledge that she had secured a position for Ayame that kept her in the village, relatively far from the war, that would also lead to a long, fulfilling career within the Police Force.

She had thought she could keep the girl safe. As safe as she could be, being a shinobi._  
><em>

Manae closes her eyes against the bitterness rising in her throat. She should have listened to her instincts. She should have never left Konoha.

She has failed in so many things. She dreads the next time she will speak to Kagami-san. He has already lost so much of his family already, the weighty sadness in his eyes already so heavy.

Manae takes a deep breath to collect herself. "She died a hero. That is only fitting for a daughter of heroes." She walks past them all, heading briskly and determinedly towards Konoha.

Fugaku follows her closely as usual, hovering just out of her peripheral vision on her right. She can see from the corner of her eye that although he is still alert to his surroundings, part of his thoughts have turned inwards and introspective as they often do when he thinks about his father.

Another regret of hers, that her son will bear the burden of his father's choices even though Fugaku will never be able to meet him. Another reason for her to wish her own choices hadn't led her down a path where she will have to hand the same responsibilities that crushed Setsuna to Fugaku and hope that their son will be stronger and more prepared for it than either of them had ever been.

"I will return to my real self then," the boy says behind her, and she hears the telltale sound of a shadow clone dispersing.

"Bye," the Uzushio girl says uselessly.

Manae breaks into a run as soon as she hears them start following after her.

She can't afford to hesitate now, even if she is struggling under the weight of the consequences for choices she can't make undone. There is still much to be done, choices that must be made to protect her village and her family.

She can only hope that the decisions she makes from now are the right ones.


	17. Chapter 17

so this took longer to post up than expected because so like traumatic emotional life events happened to me and then i was busy then just sort of in a funk and now i am writing again because i do love this story and also it is helping me work through my feelings. some of you may have noticed, but the story title changed! i decided to break my story into four because i realized it would be easier for me to break the arcs up like that. this first story will be wrapping up in a few chapters and then i'm going to take a break and write other things and work on other personal projects and then i will be back!

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><p>Mikoto wakes up once, laying on her back with a medic-nin wearing Konoha's hitai-ate hovering over her. The medic-nin is slowly drawing the knife out of her body, his chakra quickly moving to repair the damage left behind.<p>

It hurts even worse than being stabbed the first time. That is probably what woke her up.

The medic-nin stops when Mikoto starts screaming. Kushina appears suddenly at her side, tears running down her face.

The sight of Kushina crying frightens Mikoto more than the pain.

Worriedly, Mikoto looks at the medic-nin for confirmation. "Am I dying?"

"You're not dying," the medic-nin says.

"Okay," Mikoto says, and blacks out again.

The next time she wakes up, she is laying in a hospital bed and it is the Sandaime standing over her. His face looks more tired and lined than usual. She struggles to sit up and bow to him, but he stalls her with a firm hand on her shoulder holding her down.

"No, don't sit up, I think the medical staff would kill me if you strained yourself trying to pay me the proper respect," the Hokage says, then smiles wryly. "Or Kushina. She was very distressed over your condition. She tried to throw me out when she found out I was here to see if you were up to giving your mission report."

Mikoto lets herself relax and the Sandaime pulls his hand away. "I don't think I am up for writing a mission report now, Hokage-sama," she admits. She looks around curiously - this isn't a hospital room. It looks more like someone's personal study in their house, with the desk and the shelves and all the books and scrolls.

"An oral report is fine," he says, so she details the day, from the moment Saki arrived at her house to blacking out after being stabbed by the enemy-nin. She refrains from asking about anyone in particular during the report, but a fresh wave of grief washes over her every time she remembers someone that might not have survived. She struggles to keep her composure, frustrated with the tears that well up in her eyes as she tries to stay professional, divorce her personal feelings from her duty as a shinobi like she has been taught.

If the Hokage notices, he does not say. Every time she gets too overwhelmed to speak, he waits patiently without comment until she can get herself under control again. She is both grateful and ashamed that she has to be treated with such kindness.

When she is finished, the Hokage doesn't say much of anything, only stands at her side with a frown on his face. Then he sighs heavily. "Thank you, Mikoto," he says. "I am sorry for pushing you so soon. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Mikoto hesitates for a moment, unsure of whether or not it is appropriate to waste the Hokage's time right now. He waits, so she takes shameless advantage of his kindness again to ask one question.

She chickens out halfway into asking who has or has not survived the attack. "Could you... tell me where I am, maybe?" Mikoto kicks herself mentally, but is surprised at how secretly relieved she is not to have the burden of that knowledge on her shoulders yet.

"Oh," the Sandaime says, sounding almost sheepish, "Yes. You are in the study in my house."

"Your..." Mikoto looks around, seeing everything in a new light. Of course she had known that the Hokage had his own home in the village, but she had never known where it was or thought she would ever be invited into it.

The Hokage answers her unspoken question. "The hospital is currently out of commission, and the Uchiha complex is... perhaps not currently a conducive place for restful recuperation after your ordeal. Your grandfather asked a favor from me, and I was happy to grant it. In fact, even if he hadn't asked, I would have offered." He looks down at her, his face somehow both gentle and very serious. "I, and this village, owe you a great deal."

Words bubble out of her mouth before she can stop them. "Did you find the traitor?"

A part of her cringes at her lack of ceremony and directness towards the Hokage, but she needs to know who it was who betrayed her village so devastatingly.

The Hokage doesn't look surprised by her question though. "Kagami always said you were a smart girl," he says, "but that is something you do not need to worry about right now. Concentrate on your recovery first."

Carefully, Mikoto uses her uninjured arm to push herself up. "I need to know," she insists.

"No," he says gently. "You don't. That is my job, and I will take care of it."

Tears fill her eyes and her shoulder throbs accusingly at her. "They killed Ayame."

The Hokage lowers his head out of respect for her grief. "Yes."

"And the other members of my clan? The Police Force patrols? Saki?" Mikoto hates herself for the way her voice catches over Saki's name, cracking over the hope that she was in time.

The Hokage raises his head to meet her eyes, gaze sorrowful but even. "There have been many casualties, though there are several who may yet still survive. Hatake Saki..." He sighs again. "Honda Teruo was able to synthesize an antidote to combat some of the effects of the poison, but it doesn't look good for her. She's spending as much time as she can with her son for now, though they've put a mask on both her and the boy. Teruo is concerned about the poison possibly being passed to the boy through saliva or even tears."

Mikoto feels herself shaking with emotion again and she clenches her hands uselessly into the thin material of her hospital gown to try to contain her emotions. She bites her lip, but the choked sob still tears itself out of her throat.

"You did your best," the Hokage says. "And so _well, _considering the circumstances. You helped save Kakashi, Obito, Kushina-"

The tears spill over, and Mikoto's shoulder and arm throb even more insistently. Now that she's started, she can't stop sobbing, even though she dearly wishes the Hokage weren't there to see it. "B-but not Saki. Not A-ayame," she gasps out, "Not _enough_." She brings a hand up to her face in a vain attempt to hide her careening emotions.

The Hokage comes to stand by her side again, and takes her other hand. "Dear girl," he says heavily, sadness making the lines on his face deepen, "You are too hard on yourself. No one is ever able to save everyone. Not even me."

Mikoto thinks those words should make her feel worse, but they are inexplicably comforting. She clutches the Hokage's hand tightly and lets herself cry even harder.

The door slams open, making Mikoto hiccup in surprise.

Kushina stands in the doorway, arms crossed. She radiates disapproval. "Old Man Hokage, how dare you make Mikoto cry," she seethes, raising a finger accusingly at the Hokage. "I only let you in because Kagami-jii said I had to, but he didn't say you were going to upset her!"

"I didn't mean to," the Hokage says earnestly.

"Like a kid doesn't mean to spill a glass of milk, but the milk is still spilled, right?" Kushina demands, "Get out of here, old man! You're gonna make everything worse!" The Sandaime lets go of Mikoto's hand and Kushina shoos him out the door.

Mikoto watches bemusedly as Kushina shuts the door after him and then comes back over to sit in the chair placed at her side, taking the hand that the Hokage had been holding. Kushina presses her back down onto the bed, and then stares at Mikoto very intensely.

Unable to help it, Mikoto huffs out a reluctant laugh through her tears. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" Kushina asks, as if she is not trying to burn a hole through Mikoto's skull with her eyes.

"Like I'm going to disappear if you stop looking at me," Mikoto says wryly.

"Oh," Kushina says. She lowers her eyes for a moment, then looks back up at Mikoto with a much less intense gaze. "I was just... I thought I lost my best friend for a while there." Her eyes well up, making Mikoto panic slightly. "You were so brave, Mikoto!"

"I'm not!" Mikoto says defensively, before realizing her tone of voice is much more confrontational than she had expected when Kushina looks startled. She gentles her voice. "I'm not brave. If anything, you're the brave one. You just kicked the Hokage out of the room." She tries a laugh, which comes out wet and a little bit choked. She stops quickly.

Kushina says very darkly, "He deserved worse for making you cry."

"He didn't though," Mikoto defends him, smiling a little. Kushina somehow, as usual, has the ability to make her smile even when she doesn't want to.

It's a good thing, she thinks - Ayame never liked to see her cry, always expending a little extra energy to do things to make Mikoto smile. She knows that Ayame wouldn't want Mikoto to linger over her death for a long time.

She sniffles and wipes her face with the front of her hospital gown. Kushina lets go of her hand and goes to get a box of tissues and brings it over to her.

"Thank you," Mikoto says, taking them. She has to sit up a little to blow her nose. Kushina gets up to help her move and packs in pillows behind her back to prop her up before sitting back down.

They sit in companionable silence for a moment as Mikoto uses some more tissues to wipe her face. When she's done, she notices that Kushina has started avoiding her eyes again. She feels a pit of dread beginning to form in her stomach.

Kushina probably wants to talk about Ayame, but Mikoto is not sure she can handle it.

Mikoto coughs a little, clearing her throat. "Kushina," she says softly, "I'll be okay now, really. Thank you for being here with me, you have no idea how much it helps. But you don't have to stay."

Kushina fiddles with her sleeve, and says, "But I do though. And I want to." She hesitates, and then says, "I'll leave if you want me to though. I... I'm so sorry, Mikoto. Ayame should have never... If I hadn't let myself be tricked-"

"You couldn't have known-" Mikoto starts, but is cut off.

"But I did, though!" Kushina insists. "They looked like my sister and brothers, but I could have checked their chakras and they didn't look... well, chakra is sometimes hard to differentiate, and it's been a long time since I saw, I mean-"

Mikoto is getting confused, and finds herself even more reluctant to talk about it. "Kushina, I'm not understanding-"

Kushina slumps in her chair. "It's all my fault," she says miserably. "I should have known. Maybe I did know, but I just... I just wanted to go home. To Uzushio. Just a little. Maybe Ayame and those other people would still be alive if I had been a little less willing to believe they were really there to take me home." She closes her eyes and covers her face with her hands. "You should hate me."

Mikoto inhales sharply because it strikes her that it might be easier to hate Kushina, and the thought punches the breath out of her. Her shoulders curl forward and down instinctively, and Mikoto has to bite her lip to contain a shout of pain.

She doesn't _want _to blame Kushina. Mikoto has been familiar with the tenets that define shinobi life since before she even completely understood what a shinobi was.

Strength. Skill. Cleverness. Loyalty. Betrayal.

Death.

Still, there is a part of her that wants to latch onto the closest, easiest thing to lash out at. That small, angry part of her wars insistently with the cold, flat knowledge that Ayame's death is just one of many losses that Mikoto has and will experience. The same knowledge that points out that life will always be a double edged sword that splits the people in Mikoto's life into those that have survived and those that she will never see again.

Mikoto lets out her breath very slowly, and finds herself blinking back tears again. She rubs the moisture out of her eyes and looks at Kushina.

Her friend is still covering her face, but Mikoto can still see the slim, glistening line of tears trailing down her cheeks. She wonders, suddenly - maybe Kushina _wants _Mikoto to blame her. Maybe she feels like she deserves it, that Mikoto hating her would be fitting punishment for what has happened.

Any anger Mikoto might have felt dissipates almost immediately and leaves her feeling weary and sad. _Death isn't sensible_, she finds herself thinking. It happens and it hurts and no one knows who designed life this way or why, but it what it is. As shinobi, they just happen to live a little closer to death than the next person.

There is nothing that needs to be forgiven here.

Mikoto looks at Kushina sadly, unaware of the tears dripping down her face again. Her heart aches, because she knows without quite understanding that there is no way that she can give Kushina the punishment or absolution she thinks her friend might be looking for. The only thing that Mikoto knows for sure is that now, more than ever, Mikoto doesn't want to push Kushina away.

Mikoto reaches out, but her arm is too short to do anything but gently rustle the hair hanging over Kushina's eyes. "I don't blame you, Kushina," she says quietly. "Not for wanting to go home, not for Ayame's death, and certainly not for anything else. They were coming to Konoha to destroy our village and take you, whether you fell for their trick or not."

She finds herself growing tired already and she lays back, carefully shifting the pillows behind her back to support her head and neck. Kushina stares down at her hands unhappily for long enough that Mikoto's eyes begin drifting shut before looking up to meet her eyes again.

"Ayame was so strong," Kushina blurts out. "She took out two of them, you know, before they even realized. She would have gotten all of them, but the fourth one came out of nowhere." She scowls. "Dirty cheater. Ayame would have beat them all any day in a fair fight."

A fair fight, huh? "Shinobi don't fight fair," Mikoto recites tiredly. Another Honda-sensei rule. Still, she smiles a little. Ayame _was _strong.

Kushina scowls. "That wasn't a fight," she mutters bitterly. "He just stabbed her in the back while she was distracted - trying to help _me_." She sinks down lower in her seat.

Mikoto can't look at Kushina anymore, not if she's going to talk about what happened. Instead, she turns her eyes up to the ceiling and wills herself not to feel so completely devastated.

"Ayame shouldn't have died," Kushina says hoarsely, "Not for me. I don't... I don't deserve that. She should be here, not me."

Mikoto reaches out a hand and waits for Kushina to look up and take it. She smiles, trying to show Kushina that it is not her fault, even though she wishes Kushina would just stop talking about it for a little bit. "Ayame didn't die because of you, Kushina," she says. "She died because she was strong, and because she wouldn't leave you behind. Ayame lived true to her ninja way to the end. That is," she yawns, "the kind of shinobi I am going to be."

Kushina squeezes her hand. "Yeah," she says softly. Then she makes a face. "I _really_ want to give you a hug now."

"I know," Mikoto says, "Thank you. For your restraint." She smiles to ease the sting.

"I see how it is," Kushina huffs. Her eyes are too bright and her smile a touch too wobbly, but her pleasure in being able to fall into their usual banter is genuine. "Just for that, when you're recovered, I'm going to hug you one thousand times a day!"

"Well," Mikoto sighs dramatically. "I suppose I can endure it." A wicked thought occurs to her, and she turns a sly look at Kushina. "Until then, I will generously donate the hugs to Minato."

"What!" Kushina yelps, and pouts when Mikoto giggles. "Why would I hug that no-good Hokage wannabe?" Her face is already going quite pink. "Like he would even appreciate my hugs!"

"Oh," Mikoto says airily. "I don't know. He did say your hair was, what was it..." She puts on a show of thinking back, suppressing a grin at the way Kushina's whole face explodes into red. "..._beautiful_, wasn't it?"

"T-that just means he has good taste," Kushina says, stammering a little, but mostly pulling off the haughty air she puts on.

"And he's gotten pretty strong," Mikoto says blithely. "Pretty impressive, if you ask me."

Kushina squirms. "I guess he's... kind of cool," she admits reluctantly.

A wave of glee jumps up Mikoto's throat, but she carefully holds back her noise of excitement. She has never seen Kushina give in like this.

In the back of her mind, she recognizes that something big is happening, that this is not just two of Mikoto's closest friends finally settling into an uneasy friendship. The idea of Kushina and Minato coming together feels like an inevitable meeting of two great forces coming together to be even greater.

She thinks that maybe she should feel jealous or something. Mikoto is relieved that she doesn't. Even if there are other people who will become important to the both of them, even if they start spending more and more time apart, she feels secure in the fact that Kushina will always be her best friend.

"Kind of cool, huh?" she murmurs, smiling. Despite herself, she finds herself fading away again, exhausted.

Kushina stands and helps her lay back down. "Only kind of," she says again, which is a little too much protest. Mikoto lets it slide this time.

When Mikoto is settled, she smiles up at Kushina and reaches up to squeeze her friend's arm. "I'm glad you're okay," she says.

Kushina's eyes immediately get shiny with tears, and she puts her hand over Mikoto's. "I'm glad you're okay too."

Mikoto means to reply, but she doesn't. Her eyes are already sliding shut, sleep coming upon her quickly.

She feels the gentle touch of Kushina's hand brushing her hair back from her face as her consciousness fades away, and can't even summon any sort of chagrin or grief when Kushina says very quietly, "You were pretty cool too, Mikoto. I think Ayame would have been proud to see how strong you were."

Mikoto is scared for a moment that she is going to start crying again at those words, but instead she finally slips seamlessly into a restful, dreamless sleep.


End file.
